Full Circle
by Zura
Summary: When Chuck Taylor loses his best friend Troy in Silent Hill he resolves to find him no matter what the cost. Haunted and hunted by a deranged benefactor he fights through the misty land but will his mission cost him more than he bargained for? Second of the "Ashes To Blood" series.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, lines, characters, anything related to them is the sole property of the copyright owners. All rights reserved or something like that.

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"Permanent Nothingness"

(4)

The tree swayed gently in the wind, branches and trunks shimmying up as close to the road as the state would allow, waiting patiently for the chance to grow over the highway. The sun filtered down through the mostly cloudy sky, beams of light breaking through like ephemeral staircases in the air. The '77 green Gremlin powered down the pavement, the sun blinking into the windshield. The car had been outclassed and outdated for decades, but this one was in excellent condition and much beloved by the two riders in the front seat. There had been no other cars on the road for hours, which suit them just fine.

Chuck Taylor kept his foot on the gas, enjoying the ride. His best friend Troy Sheder took a long drag on his Red Apple cigarette, blowing the smoke out of the window. It was a spontaneous road trip, just to go different places and see different people, a much needed holiday for the pair. Every mile they put behind them made Chuck feel that much more at ease and relaxed, the road a sort of therapy for an otherwise routine life. Troy was his normal self, funny, charismatic, talking about the time they spent eight hours on back roads trying to get to Ontario.

"That's what I get for letting you drive." Chuck teased good naturedly.

"Yeah, yeah. Easy on the gas there, Chuck. You're speeding. That's a good way to get yourself noticed." Troy scoffed.

"Ah don't bother me. There hasn't been any other cars around and besides, we're not really going anywhere specific, we could get lost and still be on track."

"Speaking of getting lost, where the hell are we?" Troy said, flicking the last of the cigarette out of the window.

"Good question." Chuck said, "Check the map will ya?"

"Psst, map." Troy said, running his hand through his hair. He was the better looking of the two, healthy bronzed skin, a strong angular face and dark hair, had an excellent fashion sense and always managed to look cool. Chuck was sometimes envious of his friend's good looks, but it was hard to hold anything against Troy. Chuck was taller by a little, rounded face and pale skin, curly short blond hair like sheep's wool and a slightly thicker frame. His acne was a source of constant frustration and embarrassment, it was hard sometimes for him to not feel self conscious, but his friend usually cheered him up.

"Try this exit up here," Troy suggested, "we need gas soon anyway." Chuck merged onto the ill-kept off ramp, bushes and undergrowth of the forest around them actually spilling out onto the road. It seemed like no one had come through here in years, but it couldn't have been that long ago. There was a road sign on the ground just ahead of them, Chuck slowed down to see what it said. Like a thousand other signs they had seen, this one said "Silent Hill - 1 mi." and below that there was some kind of sticker that said "KEEP OUT" in red letters.

"What do you think?"

"I dunno. This town isn't even on the map." Troy said. "Maybe we should turn around and wait for another exit."

"Let's just check it out. We took this trip to breathe a little air right? If there's no gas station we can always make a U turn." Chuck assured.

Although the foliage hadn't quite overtaken the road just yet, it was clear it hadn't been used in a while. Still, there were signs of its use sometime soon, there were old tire marks in the grime that covered the road and foot prints in the mud near the edges of the pavement. If they had been made any time but recently, the prints would have faded long ago from the elements.

The road grew more tortuous as they moved along, winding through a series of low lying hills. They winded up and then back down again, into a valley shrouded in fog, the road straightened and dropped down into a long descent. It grew too foggy to see very far in short time, reducing visibility to a minimum and forcing Chuck to slow down to 15. It was very still, tense minutes rolled by until buildings started to appear in the mist. They were dark and decrepit, seemingly abandoned.

"It's so quiet…" Chucked whispered.

"Well, the sign did say Silent Hill and not Loud Hill." Troy joked, but neither of them was laughing.

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In the distance, not close but not far, a pen scrawled across an open book. The moving tip spilled ink across the empty page in quick, precise strokes until it had covered the blank paper. The pen finally was laid down, a hand reached out and snuffed the single candle in the room with a pinch. In the darkness, clothing was pulled and buckled on, weapons slid into place and a door was locked with an ancient key, footsteps echoing down a stone stairwell, fading into the air.

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"Maybe we should turn back now." Troy suggested as Chuck scanned the buildings they passed by.

"I think its-"

"Chuck!" Troy yelped but it was too late, he slammed on the brakes even as the dark form in front of them was hit by the front end of the Gremlin. He felt the impact all the way into his stomach, even though it was at low speed, the sound of crunching metal and screeching tires breaking the oppressive stillness in a violent cacophony.

"Whoa." Chuck said, his knuckles white on the wheel. He and Troy exchanged a look of mixed fear and worry, the two getting out and circling around to the front of the car. In a rapidly growing pool of red lay an animal of some kind, the mangled grill wet with the creature's blood. It was unlike anything Chuck had ever seen, it seemed to be a dog but instead of having fur it was covered in a mottled brown and black skin, apparently burned or scalded. Where its eyes and muzzle should have been it was smooth, instead of a horizontal line for its mouth it had a vertical one that ran up its skull instead of across.

"What the hell is this thing?" he said aloud,

"I don't know…" he said. When his friend turned back to face him, something else was on his usually cheerful features. "Hey…are you okay?" Troy asked worriedly. Chuck began to feel strange, he blinked but it seemed to take a full minute, getting his eyelids back up was suddenly difficult. "Chuck?" Troy asked him but he was already falling. He was aware of hitting the ground but unable to feel it. The white mist closed in around him and Chuck Taylor fell headlong into a deep, deep torpor.

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Everything became clear again, the spinning stopped and Chuck's head ceased to throb. He was lying on his side, stretched out on a cot, staring at a padded wall. It had been white once, the soft cloth now discolored with age. The light above him was a dull yellow, blinking on and off repeatedly, tinking with effort as it struggled to stay on. He didn't know how he got here, he didn't know where here was. His mind was in fragments, like shattered glass. There was the animal and the car and Troy but then everything became hazy. Had it only happened a second ago or had it been days? Time had passed, that much he was certain of, but how much and for how long?

He collected himself, sitting up on the cot. The light above was still making sounds that pierced the calm of the room, the flashes of darkness giving it an uneasy vibe. Feeling a little light headed, Chuck sat on the edge of the cot and let the dizziness pass, staring at the dirty floor. There wasn't much point to figuring out what happened, he had to deal with his situation now and hope to learn that later. The room was a small padded cell, something right out of a bad dream. There was no handle on the door, only a small window that was his link to the outside world.

Moving shakily to his feet, Chuck peered out through the glass, trying to see if there were people around. There was a long hall going left and running, it was mostly dark, metal and dirty, ancient looking. A row of lights hung from the ceiling but only one on the far right seemed to be working, casting an outnumbered spot of light in the gloom. He looked all over for a way out but the door was seamless, shut. It had been built to keep someone from escaping, but that was exactly what he had to do or he would eventually starve to death.

The window was his only option, he took off his gray sweater and wrapped it around his hand. Taking a deep breath, he slugged the glass for all he was worth. The pane didn't budge, but pain shot through his knuckles and up his arm like fire. He roared in the cell, shaking out his arm, cursing his own stupidity, waiting for the shock to slowly dissipate. If only he had a knife! The best way to break glass was with one sharp point, like a blade or even a screwdriver, but he kept nothing like that on him. Inspecting the cot, it seemed to be fixed into the wall and covered in a very cushion like material, probably to make sure whoever was inside didn't hurt themselves against it. What else could there possibly be to use?

The single point method gave him an idea, and this time he wrapped the sweater around his elbow, using as much of it as he could while retaining the somewhat jutting bone on the end of his arm. It was going to hurt, a lot, Chuck knew it but he didn't have a choice. Backing up against the padded wall across from the door, he took a minute to breathe and work up the nerve. When he was ready he exploded off the wall like a track star, practically flying at the window.

It shattered satisfactorily, some of the shards inflicting minor cut but the impact was much easier on his elbow then he imagined it would have been. The first punch did more damage to him then that, he carefully picked out the glass on his sweater and knocked out the rest of the broken pieces with it, his arm in a dull numb pain but not seriously injured. Just to be safe, he used his other arm to reach through the tiny aperture and feel around for the handle. Miraculously it was within reach, he had to fiddle a few frustrating minutes the with the lock mechanism, but he was able to slide the latch to the side. Feeling for the handle, he pulled it up and the door clicked open, the most welcome sound he had ever heard. He shook off his sweater, ridding it of any glass particles and put it back on, stepping out into the hallway at last.

On the right was a solid looking door and the lighted lamp, to the left the hall turned and was dark. He didn't like the thought of wandering around in some creepy place in the dark, so he chose the lighted path. The entire row was made of cells just like his with identical locks, none of them having a working light. He was grateful of his having one, however partially it worked. Maybe his luck was beginning to change.

When he touched the doorknob at the end of the hall, it seemed colder then the rest of the area as if it were giving off its own temperature. What was making it do that? He went through to investigate, stepping into a meat locker of some kind. It _was _colder in here, he could see his breath as he entered. There was something odd going on however, there was rust everywhere. The walls, the floor, the hundreds of strands of metal chains hanging from the high ceiling were covered in it, making for a shabby and decrepit room. The chains were the worst, they were so thick he couldn't see but a few feet in front of him, some of them having meat hooks on the end and a few clanking together ominously. It had to be a slaughterhouse of some kind, but what was it doing right next to a row of padded cells? That hadn't occurred to him when he first came through, but there was no use trying to figure things out just yet.

Something scraped against the metal floor not too far away, sending a ripple of motion through the chains which swayed like grass in the wind. "Is someone there?" Chuck called out, but he didn't get an answer. Whoever it was they were moving closer, the chains clinking together in their wake, the floor scraping erratic. Chuck was suddenly uneasy, something was very wrong and something in the back of his mind was telling him this wasn't right. He ignored the feeling and stood his ground, waiting for the person to come into view.

His uneasy feeling was replaced much more quickly then he ever wanted it to be when the other finally came through the chains. Its feet weren't its feet but hands, fingers splayed out on the ground, elbows pointed askew where the knees should be. It legs had been similarly juxtaposed, coming out the sides of the creature's shoulders as if they belonged that way in the first place. It had two large appendages that might have been its head, sticking out on the bottom and top of the torso in between both sets of misplaced limbs. Both were smooth and devoid of features, pale and peeling skin barely stretching to cover the grotesque body.

Chuck screamed in abject terror, scrambling back the way he came and tearing down the hall into the dark turn, which was hiding another door. He flung it open, in front of him was another row of cells, well lit by the working lights. There seemed to have been a battle of some kind in here, the walls and floors were slick with red blood, pooling on the floor and streaking down the walls. Some of the cell doors were hanging open, red bits of things he didn't want to think about trailing from one of the open doors. He froze in fear, but the sound of the thing he had seen moving behind him snapped Chuck out of his shocked state and spurred him into motion, sending him running down the bloody hall.

The lights began to fail a couple dozens cells down, he had no choice but to keep going. That decision cost him when his foot hit open air and he tumbled down, falling into a hole he hadn't even seen. He landed hard, he tasted blood in his mouth getting to his feet, but when he looked around him that was the least of his worries. Gathered around the one light in the room, three vaguely human creatures in nurse outfits were performing surgery on or perhaps just stabbing with scalpels another vaguely human creature laid out on an operating table. The patient, if it could be called that, appeared to be trying to scream and get free, but it was gagged with a dirty cloth and well strapped onto the table. Chuck was beyond fear, there was nothing coming into his mind, only the utter terror. If he had tried to talk he would have been blubbering incoherently, to his benefit however he couldn't even say something.

The twisted nurses stopped their activities, their faceless heads swinging around towards Chuck's direction, bobbing up and down. It almost looked like they were trying to smell him, but there was so much blood in the air and a lot of it pouring out of their patient it would have been difficult to pick up anything else. Chuck's heart was beating so hard that he thought he was about to keel over, but the creatures turned back to their project and continued working.

His mouth was bleeding and his knee was hurting, but Chuck forced himself to move on. There were a couple other door leading out of the room, as quietly as he could possibly manage he went towards one. He kept his eyes trained on the monsters, ignoring the pain, opening the door softly. They didn't notice, engrossed in their patient, dead to the world. The next room was thankfully empty, Chuck limped in and locked it behind him.

Sliding down against the wall, he took deep breaths and tried not to break down. "What the hell is going on?" he asked the open air, burying his head in his hands. Was this just some kind of bad nightmare he was going to wake up from? Just a second ago he was out having the time of his life, driving carefree on the open road with his best friend. "Oh no….." he said aloud, he had completely forgotten about Troy. Was he here somewhere in this mess? It wasn't even something he could consider that perhaps his friend had already met a grisly end, the only thing to do was try to find him.

"I'll find you buddy. I'll find you if it's the last thing I do." he promised the empty room.


	2. Chapter 2

"In Darkness We Gather"

(6)

Taking deep breaths, Chuck calmed himself down as best he could. Pay no attention to the horrors you have just seen, concentrate on breathing. In, out, in, out. He felt more relaxed, the pain in his knee still throbbing but fading as time went on, pulse slowly returning to normal. He waited a few more minutes, listening to the sound of his own breaths. Surprisingly the door completely blocked out the sounds of what was going on just a few feet away, something that he could neither explain or rationalize. It was as if he were trapped in a bad dream, but there was nothing dreamlike about his situation.

Gingerly he cleaned up his face, the wiping the blood from his nose and mouth. He stretched out his knee and let it go limp against the cold floor. It wasn't a badly injured as he feared, it was best to let it recuperate against the cold floor. They were monsters, real monsters, panic threatened to overcome him again but he struggled to think rationally. Someone must have taken him into that cell for his own protection, against the things that were lurking in this place. But where was here anyway? Was he even in Silent Hill still? If it was, his goals were simple, get back to his car, get the hell out of here and get help. But what of Troy? Had he gone through the same things, the same horrors? No one would even believe him if he told his story Chuck realized, it was hard to swallow even though he was the one it was happening to. There was so much he didn't understand, but he knew that leaving wasn't an option. He was going to find his friend and that's all there was to it.

The first step was getting out of here, where ever here was. For the first time he actually looked around at the room that he stumbled into, the dirty floors and walls illuminated by a single ceiling lamp much like the ones that had been hanging outside of his cell. To his disappointment there was no exit, not even a window, it was a dead end. The only other thing in the room besides him was a chair facing the opposite direction, there was something long sitting on it that he couldn't quite identify from his position. Slowly getting to his feet, he eased off his knee and much as possible, dragging himself over to the chair.

On the chair was a length of metal pipe, about four feet long and unlike everything else around here, clean and polished, shiny. There was a small yellow note stuck to it, curious Chuck opened the folded paper and read in disbelief:

Chuck. You mustn't be afraid. This will help you in case you have to defend yourself. Get to the Lakeview Hotel. It's across the water, across the bridges, you can't miss it. I will meet you there if I can. Hurry. Don't be afraid.

Troy

He read it twice to make sure that it was his imagination. Here was solid proof that Troy was alive, he knew that handwriting anywhere. He stuff the note into his back pocket and picked up the pipe, feeling its weight in his hands. It was fairly light, easy to swing, not the best weapon but he was glad to have something if those freaky nurses ever decided to come for him. Hobbling back the wall, he eased down against it, laying the pipe across his legs. Trying to work up the courage to open the door, he found himself nodding off after a while, jerking back awake suddenly. It was quiet, but he couldn't rest knowing what was going on one wall away.

It was hard to stay awake for some reason, but it eased the dull ache in his knee and he unwillingly succumbed to his own fatigue. He couldn't figure why he was so tired, but when he fell asleep again and woke up, he knew a few hours had passed. Something strange had happened, the room had completely changed. Gone was the empty space and dirty, squalid floors, replaced instead by some kind of medical room. Light was coming in from the large window across from him, mostly blocked out by the closed blinds. There were six beds spaced evenly apart, thin brown blankets and sterile white sheets folded in identical precision. Dusty machines waited on the walls behind them, but it was clear no one had been in this room in a very long time. Bluish curtains hung on rails that extended past the beds, used for separating patients as if the small piece of cloth really separated them. Chuck never liked hospitals for that starchy, too clean smell that they always had, here it was barely noticeable as the dust covered everything and stifled the odor.

His face has stopped bleeding and when he got to his feet his knee was sore but had no pain. He was still a little tired and very much would liked to have laid down on one of those thin beds and gotten some real sleep, but this was no time to rest. Troy's message spurred him on, he had to get moving. Part of him wasn't sure if this was all just bad nightmare or not, but he wanted it to be over. All he had to do was meet Troy at the hotel and they could leave for good.

Going to the window, he pushed aside the blinds for a look outside. He was high up, a couple stories off the ground. In front of the building was a tower of some kind and an empty street, the thick fog obscured nearly everything else. He was still in Silent Hill alright, he knew what he had to do here. Going back to the door, he took a quick moment to steel himself for the horrors and opened the door, pipe at the ready.

Like the room he was in, everything had completely changed. The large, open room was gone, there was simply a hallway with a couple bulletin boards and health reminders. The top of the board read "Alchemilla Hospital", with a small map of the fire escapes. Was this some kind of bad dream? Either he was going crazy or there was something supernatural going on here. He never much believed in ghost stories and witches, but it was hard to dismiss what he had seen hours ago.

Cautiously he crept out into the hall, expecting something to assault him any second but the faint light coming in from the windows showed no faceless nurses, no stalking forms. There was a large blue arrow with an elevator symbol leading him right, it almost seemed too easy. He went to the end of the hallway and gingerly touched the down button. The old machinery whirred to life, he was startled by the sudden noise and whipped around, but nothing was there.

"Hah, nice Chuck, jumping at nothing." he said aloud, lowering the pipe. The elevator dinged as it hit his floor, he brought the pipe up but nothing was in the car. It was a little dirty but empty, Chuck gratefully stepped in and hit the lobby button. The doors opened and he walked out into a similar hall, a large double door exit greeting him. He nearly bounded out the door, glad to be out of the hospital at last. The courtyard was overrun with plant life, the thick grass of the small yard wild and clamoring onto the single stone path leading away from that horrible place. He jogged out of the building and down the steps, glad to be away from that horrid place.

The streets were quiet and still as a graveyard, he made his way down the empty road in front of him. The buildings seemed to be watching him as he went by, the dark windows like eyes that stared back at him. He wandered up the street to a crossing, the names of the streets written on old green signs caked with grime. He was traveling along Crighton, the intersecting street Sagan. He kept walking, not knowing exactly what to look for but feeling the need to keep moving nonetheless. It wasn't long before he spotted a welcome sight, the local police station. It was an old style building with the front partially made of stone, the thick pillars framing the doorway. The glass insets of the doors reminded him of something out of a 50s detective movie. He could almost see through the door to the station inside, at least if there was something waiting for him behind it he could see.

Gripping the steel pipe hard in his hand, he crept up the steps and gently eased the door open. It creaked slightly as he entered, the brass handle of the door sliding back into place as he shut the door behind him. The station was a mess, his heart sank when he entered. It was clear that no one had been here for a while, it was as if someone had come through with a sledgehammer and roughed the place up. There were papers and trash scattered all about the floors, sizable pieces of the walls missing. It wasn't a safe place he realized, but maybe there was something here he could use as a weapon. A gun maybe, something better then a pipe.

As quietly as possible he crept up into the building, keeping the metal in his hand ready for anything. The ruined rooms contained no horrible monsters, no faceless demons. He walked through the entirety of the building, searching for something that might help him. He found it in the form of the armory, located near the rear of the building. Thankfully the door wasn't locked, he pushed it open and found the armory well stocked. Some of the pistols and all of the heavy guns have been taken off the walls and shelves that they rested on, he cursed his bad luck that there wasn't something with some real stopping power. He put down the pipe and reverently took one of the handguns off the wall, inspecting it like his father had taught him to. It was a little dusty, black, the serial number worn with age. The hammer and trigger worked smoothly when he flicked the safety off, it seemed to be in good condition despite its long period of disuse. There were boxes of bullets stacked up on each other, he pulled one off and filled up his clip. The rest he left in the box and carried with him, feeling much better about his situation.

There wasn't much to do but look around the station, he sorted through old papers left out on desks for a while. It seemed like there was nothing around that was recent, all the dates on the papers were from the mid 80s. Mostly they were small reminders, minor police reports for missing pets or stolen bicycles. After a few hours of looking around, he noticed that it was starting to get dark outside. He didn't want to be caught unawares, the safest place he could think of was back in the armory. Going inside, he closed the door and slid the thick bolts shut. There was only a small bit of light coming in from a high window in the room, Chuck laid down on the cold floor and tried to get comfortable. It was eerily quiet in there, as creepy as it was he found himself drifting off fairly quickly.

Light woke him the next day, coming in through that small window. His neck was sore but he felt better, ready to go out and look for his friend in order to get the hell out of here. No less careful now then before, he slowly unlocked the door and swung it outward, ready for anything but only an empty greeted him. Relaxing a bit, he made his way out of the somewhat familiar building, stepping out to where he had been passing by the day before. He decided to try going back to that street that he had skipped earlier, making a right when he came to it. The fog was thick as ever, but he wasn't as nervous as he was the day before. His shooting skills had been honed since he was a boy, he would have preferred to walk down the street with a good Winchester rifle but the police issue pistol would do. It wasn't long before the sound of water reached his ears, he grew hopeful that he would be over to where Troy was soon.

His hopes were dashed a few moments later when the bridge came into view. The streets had been lifted up into the air, making getting across to the other side impossible by foot. Unless he decided to swim the distance, but there was no telling was kind of nasty things were floating around down in there. He didn't see any way to lower the bridge from here, there had to be a control station somewhere. Just his luck, it was probably on the other side. Why there wasn't another on this side he couldn't imagine, but he turned around and scanned the nearby buildings anyway, looking for anything that might resemble the control station.

It didn't seem to be anywhere, he had to keep searching. Going back up Sagan, he looking around for anything that might help him. All he saw was dark and vacant buildings, he took a rest on a bench near a small park. It occurred to him that he might find something back at the station, he got up and headed back the way he came. He was still looking at the buildings when he heard a voice from behind him, he whirled around and pointed the gun at what was coming at him.

It wasn't particularly cold, but this stranger was nearly covered in black leather. Trench coat, glasses, gloves, thick boots, only his face was visible. He was Hispanic, trim mustache and a small line of a goatee on his chin. While he was shorter then Chuck, there was something about the way he walked that made him seem dangerous. His eyebrows were thick and forehead high, dark hair spiking out in every direction. He was talking to himself, yammering on about something strange.

"…probably watching me right now, all fat and white and full of head juice…" he said in a in a deep, creaking voice.

"Uh, hello?" Chuck called out. "Do you know what's going on here?"

"…I followed your trail of head juice!"

He didn't seem to even know Chuck was there, his path about to run right through him. Chuck stepped out of the way and kept the gun pointed low at the ground, but not entirely away from the strange man approaching. "Hey buddy, what's wrong with you?"

"Blue, so blue. The deepest shade of mushroom bl- what? Oh, cerulean blue. _Cerulean_ blue. Ceruuuuulean blue." the man said, walking past him. "Cerulean…."

"This guy's a nut." he breathed.

"Dance and explode, dance and explode, dance and explode, dance…" the man said, walking away into the mist. Chuck watched him go until he was out of sight and released his finger from the trigger. There wasn't much he could do about the stranger, but there had to be a way to get that bridge down. He went back to the police station and began looking through the desks in earnest for something about the bridge. There had to be some information around here about the way the mechanism worked, something in a report, anything. He was rifling through one of the detectives' desks on the second floor when he heard the door of the station open.

He was moving before who or whatever it was took the first step into the building, he jumped behind the desk and got his line of sign towards the hallway. If that guy showed up or it was some creature, he'd blast it in half before it got two steps up the hall. He heard commotion down there, drawers and papers being moved. He waited tensely and when he heard whoever it was coming up the stairs his heart began to beat faster. When the sound was almost to his floor, he fired a couple warning shots, the cordite blasts splitting the quiet in a shower of splinters.

"Hey!" someone shouted angrily. A woman.

"Hello?" he called out, unsure it was a trick or something.

"I'm coming up the stairs, don't shoot." she said, the sound of her steps

"Do it, slow." he said. He watched her come up the stairs, surprised very much by the beauty of the woman coming up the stairs. Her hair was dark brown and rested on her shoulders, her face was a little dirty and she had been crying but he could tell that once these superficial things were cleared out of the way she was quite pretty. She was wearing some kind of dark blue get up, hands in the air. What was most striking was her green eyes, gleaming at him like gems.

"If you're still a human, say something." he warned but he could tell she was okay.

"Something." she said. "Can I put my hands down now?"

"Sorry, its just sometimes you never know." He stood up from behind the desk, feeling silly for having shot at her but it was a precaution he had to take.

"What's your name?" she asked, putting away her gun.

"Chuck. Chuck Taylor." he said, offering her his hand, and they shook. "You?"

"Julia. Sorry to scare you."

"Don't worry about it." He said, sitting on the desk, clicking the safety of his gun on and putting down on the desk. "Tell you the truth, I'm glad to see someone else. You're the first person I've seen here that's normal."

"Normal?'

"There was some other guy that was just babbling to himself about 'head juice'. He was kind of creeping me out, I saw him a few hours ago by the park."

"What did he look like?"

"Oh I dunno, looked like one of those freaks that shoot up a school, trench coat, black clothes, goatee, Latino or something, definitely not white. Freakin' weirdo, he didn't even look at me when he was walking by. He was saying something about a man trying to get his head juice."

"You ever seen someone named Nobody? Wears metal armor?"

Was this chick crazy? He didn't want to know. "Uh, no sorry. There's some guy running around here with armor on?"

"Yeah."

"Jeez, this place is so messed up."

"He's one of the good guys, believe me. Have you seen…the other Silent Hill yet?"

Images of what he had seen at Alchemilla flashed in his head. "Yeah, I've seen it. Don't suppose you know what's going on here?' He was pretty sure she didn't have any idea either but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"No, sorry. I just got here yesterday, all of this is just crazy."

"Know what you mean. You haven't seen anyone else have you? I'm looking for a friend of mine, his name's Troy. We were lost, we drove into town and hit a dog or something. He's about my age, brown hair, brown eyes."

She shook her head no and he was unable to hide its disappointment. "Damn. It was so weird, one minute we were looking at the dog, then I was somewhere else. I don't remember all of what happened, but the next thing I knew I was locked in this creepy fucking padded room."

"Whoa, really?"

"Yeah. I had to break out the window with my elbow, thank God there wasn't wire mesh in the glass or I would probably still be in there."

"Then what happened?"

The last thing he wanted to think about was what when on there, but it was nice to know that he wasn't crazy. "I don't want to talk about it. Just believe me when I say, stay the hell away from the hospital."

"Thanks for the advice. What are you doing here anyway?'

Chuck smiled wryly. "I was lookin' for a gun. I used to shoot game with my Dad up in Canada, just makes me feel better havin' a piece with me."

"That's kind of why I came here too. Don't happen to know where I can find some extra bullets do you?"

"Sure, the armory is down this way. You know how to handle that thing?' he said, jumping off the desk.

"I have a Glock at home I take to the range every month. When you're a woman in the city by yourself, its just a good idea to have protection." She didn't seem to have noticed how tough that sentence made her out to be, but he didn't press it.

"Can appreciate that. C'mon, let's get you loaded up."

He took her down to the armory, making sure that he wasn't too complacent even on his own territory. The weirdo by the park had him jumpy.

"Walk along the edges of steps by the wall or railing." Chuck explained. "You won't make them creak that way like you would if you walked right up the middle."

"That's good advice. You might have blown my head off if I snuck up on you though."

"You just gotta know what you're firing at. When you do a lot of shooting you get a built in safety that ought to kick in when you see another person in your crosshairs." He opened the door to the armory and showed her the bullets.

"Seemed to like locking their own stuff up." Chuck said, nodding towards the cabinets. "I'd shoot one of them open but if one of the bastards has something that can explode, well…I'll just try to find the key."

She grabbed and couple of boxes of ammo and a couple clips from the guns next to them. He couldn't not say something about that, she was unwittingly rendering the guns next to them useless. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Just getting some spares in case I have to reload fast."

"Yeah but what about the guns you're taking them out of?"

"Yeah?"

"Now they won't work."

"So?"

"I'm just saying maybe other people will come in here looking for a weapon, and those two will be useless without clips. I mean, I'd kill for a shotgun but it looks like someone already raided all of the ammo for themselves."

"But…"

Chuck put his hands up as a sign of giving up. "Do what you want. I'm just saying someone that came here before us left stuff for other people to use."

"No, you're right." she said, putting the clips back. "I don't want to do that to someone else."

"Well, what now?"

"I need to find any records I can about a murder that took place in this town."

"Probably find it in archives. C'mon, its down the way a bit."

"Sure know your way around here." she said.

Chuck laughed softly. "I've been hanging out here a couple days. After I got out of that hell hole down the street, I wanted a gun bad. Actually, I think Troy might be across the drawbridge, but I don't know how to lower it. One of them is just totally gone, looks like an earthquake or something took it out. I've been here trying to find a way to lower it."

"Don't worry, I just did it on my way over here."

"Really?" he said, his hope growing.

"Yeah. I came from across the lake."

This was good news, very good news. Now he wouldn't have to hand around here anymore. "Wow, great. You didn't happen to see a motel over there did you?'

She seemed to think on it for a moment before saying, "A couple, actually. I saw one on Sanford and the sign for another on Nathan. Then there's that big one."

"Big one?"

"The huge hotel over by the water. It looks like it was burned."

"Lakeview…" Chuck breathed. "Here's the archives." he said, trying not to pretend that he was paying attention to her.

"Thanks. Any chance you can help me look through all this crap?"

Chuck shook his head sadly, genuinely sad that he couldn't do more for her. "Hah, if you had told me that before then I probably would have. Sorry though, I have to get to Lakeview. I'm pretty sure Troy will be there."

"What makes you so sure?'

"A hunch, I guess." he lied, knowing full well what the note is his pocket said. "Look, I hope you find what you need. I have to get going. I hate to leave you like this, but let me give you some advice. Find a walkie talkie, there ought to be one lying around here somewhere. If you turn it on, you can hear static when one of those things is nearby. They're attracted to light and sound but not movement, if you can stay quiet and don't use your light often, you won't need to fight so much."

"Okay…thanks Chuck, I hope we run into each other again."

He smiled brightly. "Me too Julia. See ya." He walked quickly out of the station, eager to be done with this town. Julia had given him passage across the water, he hoped this time he would be able to find Troy. There was only one way to find out, and was going to meet whatever Silent Hill threw at him head on.


	3. Chapter 3

"Smile For Me Now"

(11)

There was still plenty of time to get across the water, he skipped out of the station and down the way he went the day before. It was still misty out, he was beginning to think it wasn't going to be clearing up anytime soon. The mist didn't dampen his high hopes, when he turned onto Sagan he could clearly see that the bridge had indeed been lowered. Walking along in the cold morning air, his pocket jingling with the faint clicking of the rounds in it, Chuck crossed the water. Leaning over the edge of the bridge as he walked, he saw the mist curling over the perfect calm of the lake. The water was dark, waves of motion rippling from things he couldn't see, and likely didn't want to.

There were signs pointing the way to the hotel on the other side of the bridge, as well as the small control booth that he was looking for. This area of Silent Hill was mostly residential, the streets were lined with ready made houses and untended lawns. The tourist friendly green signs posted on intersections led him south, towards the hotel he sought and some amusement park. He passed a lighthouse and the park a few minutes later, neither one interested him at the moment but he could see why the town used to be a vacation spot. If it wasn't like this, or at least before it was like this, it must have been quite a peaceful place to visit.

It wasn't long after he passed the park that the enormous Lakeview Hotel slowly appeared out of the mist. Easily the largest man made structure he had seen since he came here, it was a monument to the ghost town's abandoned state. It had been damaged by fire but still stood somehow, row upon row of dark windows in line with blackened trim. It must have been old, like the police station it reminded Chuck of something from the 40s or 50s. And even if the horrors that he had seen in Alchemilla weren't around, there was no telling if the building would simply collapse on itself. He tried not to think of how daunting a task it would be to look through every single room in that place for his friend, but if that's what it took then he would do it.

However, there was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but to go forward. Walking up to it, he could feel the height of the building as it towered over him, ancient and forbidding. The front entrance, once plush and inviting, was caved in and the arch slumped to the side. There were no windows low enough, too much debris to dig through, he would have to find another way in. Carefully Chuck made his way around the building to the rear, there was some kind of restaurant coming out of the back. Tables with umbrellas sat on a concrete patio ringed by a small green fence. There was green grass stretching from the end of the patio to the edge of the cliff that the hotel stood near. A small, paved path led across the back of the hotel and a thicker, unpaved one lined the cliff and disappeared on a slope over the edge. He could vaguely see the lake from here, it must have been quite a sight when it wasn't so foggy.

Chuck climbed over the small barricade, making for the large sliding glass door that marked the entrance to the restaurant. It was rusted but unlocked, he let himself in and entered Lakeview at last. Once upon a time, this much have been a swank place to eat. There was still luncheon specials advertising daily dishes, he almost laughed at what the usual prices were. Typical tourist trap kind of place, if anyone stayed in this hotel it must have made some pretty decent cash. Making his way back into the kitchen, Chuck scoured for something that might be edible.

The kitchen was all metal and tile, surfaces that would have shown brightly now dull and cold in the faint light and dust. It was larger then he expected, finding the stores was going to be somewhat annoying. He turned around a fixture and found a counter with a sink built into it and something worse. It was a large industrial strength blender, solidly made of glass and steel. Inside was a blur of something reddish brown, he realized a moment later that it and the pool around the blender was dried blood. Sitting next to the appliance were a few fingers severed at the knuckle, next to them a sawing knife. Worst of all was a cup next to the blender that had been used to store some of what was inside it. Chuck felt increasingly queasy as he gradually got closer, there was something on the cup that he was partially sure of what was but was unable to stop himself from investigating.

To his horror, the marks on the top of the cup were lip prints, encrusted in the brownish red dried blood that stained the area. He gagged, almost vomiting but stepping away from that horrible sight. Scrambling back, Chuck desperately ran, trying to get as far away from there as possible. He passed some large double doors leading somewhere he didn't know, but he was too scared to think it through and burst through them.

He entered the grand foyer of the old building, once an impressive sight. The marble floors and faded rugs still gave a sense of the majestic décor the hotel used to enjoy, although the scenery was lost on Chuck. He had waded right into a scene of carnage and his thoughts flew right out of his head as he took in what was happening.

There were at least a half dozen of the creatures like he had seen in Alchemilla, some missing an arm, some missing their heads and some fused together like the first one he'd seen. All were carrying weapons or were a weapon of some kind, a sharp piece of metal for an arm on one, a rusty knife being carried by another. One had a blunt instrument like a club. Well, it was more of an object, but it was blunt, hard and blunt. There were already a number of bodies scattered on the floor, a collective layer of blood making the floor slick.

In the center of them all was the guy Chuck had seen earlier that day, the one babbling about nothing that just walked by him. He'd lost the large coat, glasses and gloves, wearing a tight, short sleeved black shirt and flowing pants. He was wearing some kind of leather harness with two straps running across his chest, on the back it was some kind of plated armor. Chuck didn't get a good look at it, the creatures were swarming around the stranger and he seemed to be fighting them all at once.

His hands were soaked in blood up to the wrists, it wasn't hard to see why. He leapt around with the agility of an acrobat, diving, ducking, vaulting over and around the monster's swinging arms and weapons. They staggered and chopped their way at him, only to be broken by his fists.

The man swept one's legs out from under it, on the creature before it hit the ground, fist slamming down onto its chest cavity. Chuck heard the bones snap and give way, the doomed creature's blood gushing up from its ruined torso. The monster with a piece of metal for an arm took a swing at the stranger, the Dark Man was all Chuck could think of to call him, but it was no use as he was already moving.

The metal arm hit only open air, the Dark Man side stepping the path of the strike. He gripped the creature's arm and with a mighty wrench, tore the metal out of the skin. The monster screamed for a half second before it got the jagged steel back, rammed into its neck. It gurgled and died, joining a rapidly increasing number of its kind on the floor. Two were closing in on him, one bringing a pipe horizontally at the Dark Man's back. Even without seeing the blow coming, he bent in half, the pipe passing harmlessly an inch or so above the strange harness he was wearing.

From the low position, he kicked backwards and caught the creature in the stomach. It doubled over as the one in front of the Dark Man slashed with a rusty knife. He came up and stopped the arm of the knife attacker with his forearm, the same foot that he used on the last one coming back the other direction and crunching into the new one's kneecap. The leg bent back the other way with a grotesque pop, the Dark Man slugged it in the chest and the monster went down as its sternum split open. The first one with the pipe was coming back up, he turned and dropped his elbow down on the back of its head, the creature's skull cracking as it fell to the floor.

If that last hit hurt the stranger's elbow at all he didn't show it, jumping over the bodies around him at the last two monsters still standing. The first had two long blades grafted into its arms, it came in swinging and forced the Dark Man to dodge them, unable to stop a sharp blade with his bare hands apparently. When it seemed the creature was going to back him up to the pile of bodies behind them, the Dark Man found an opening and bolted forward. He narrowly missed a blade as he stepped in close, slamming both his arms down on the creature's shoulders. It shot down to its knees and he stepped into a vicious strike. He hit the monster in the head so hard it twisted almost completely around, the sound of tearing skin and tendons making Chuck's stomach flip.

The last one was still five feet away when the Dark Man jumped like a cat onto its torso, tumbling to the ground with it. Coming up on top, sitting on its chest and pinning its arms to the floor, he started pounding it into the ground. Fists pumping up and down like pistons, he turned its head and upper body into mush, bits of skin and blood spattering his face. Chuck was mortified but unable to move, entranced by the spectacle in front of him.

The Dark Man stood up, panting in exertion. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a forearm, his hands covered up to the wrists in gore and flecks of matter. At last he regarded Chuck, his dark eyes hollow but lucid, focusing in on the only other creature in the room still standing.

"Are the bones of your sins sharp enough to cut through your own excuses?" he asked, that voice like a churning millstone.

"What?"

"It is not wise of you to trespass here, Chuck Taylor." he said.

"How the hell do you know my name?" Chuck said, but there was little bravado behind his words. His fingers tightened on the handle of the pistol in his hand, he wasn't sure if bullets would be enough to stop the Dark Man, and he didn't want to find out.

"That is irrelevant. The only important fact is that you are here, and you should not be here."

"I'm here by choice, it's none of your business why." Chuck said.

The Dark Man smiled and it was horrible to look at, as if the act were something unnatural and evil. Chuck didn't know why, but it was like looking at a car wreck, disturbing but captivating at the same time. "We are not here because we're free, we're here because we're not free. Turn around and leave. There is nothing for you here, only death."

"I can't leave and I don't care what the consequences are. What's it to you anyway? You don't even know me, I don't even know your name."

"I am like you. I have no name." the Dark Man rasped. "I too am trapped between the light and the shadow, only I can see the real from the unreal. The truth shines like fire but burns too bright for the wicked to look at. I will deliver you from your darkness, into that pure light."

"You're nuts pal. Who are you? What do you want?"

"Who I am, what I am, is of no concern to you. Time presses…" The other man turned from Chuck, walking through the pools of blood and corpses of the creatures he had just slaughtered.

"Wait! You know something about what's going on don't you? Tell me please!"

"Heaven's dark harbinger…the nightmare. Sometimes the autumn brings falling leaves, sometimes it brings a tragedy, a walking sorrow." The Dark Man said, walking up the grand stairs of the hotel.

The steps were caked with dust, every step he took produced a tiny cloud. The stranger went into the large doors at the top of the stairs and disappeared through them, the old wood seemingly about to fall off the hinges. Chuck took a couple of minutes to collect himself, having to consciously make himself lessen his grip on the butt of the pistol, finger almost painfully unlatching from its place by the trigger. At least he knew now that he wasn't crazy, knew that Troy was in here somewhere. All he had to do was find him and this living nightmare would be over.

He took a wide path around the corpses and went up the stairs the way the Dark Man had gone. To Chuck's surprise, he could easily see the path of foot prints going up to the doors. The blood on the bottom of the other man's boots left small outlines on the dusty carpet, he had no trouble tracking them. Perhaps it might be useful to follow the creep, Chuck would at least feel better that he wasn't the one being followed for once.

The old door creaked open as Chuck keep going along with the prints. There was a long main hall here going left and right, directly in front of him were more doors leading to the hotel's central entertainment hall. The prints led him left, he went down to another intersection before the prints made a sharp turn into the wall. The red prints continued up the wall, on the ceiling and back down the other side, where the last one was cut in half by the floor.

"That doesn't make any damn sense." Chuck said aloud, but there was no use trying to figure it out. He noted that he was by the stairwell and the reading room, moving to the main wing of the hotel at last. It was extremely long, the doors to individual rooms like a honeycomb in its uniformity. He tried the handles of the first fifteen or so but most of them seemed to be locked. When he did find an open room, it was dusty but immaculately neat and empty. He was nearly to the end of the long hall when he gave up the fruitless search, heading back the way he came.

The stairwell was dark, he turned on his pocket flashlight and headed upstairs, coming out on the third floor. Right away he could hear something different, something muffled from walls but nearby. He locked onto the sound and headed right, passing the 300 doors by until he reached the one he was mostly sure the sounds were coming from, room 312. He turned the handle ever so gently, it was unlocked. As quietly as possible, he slowly stepped in.

The room was like many of the other ones he had seen, dusty, large bed upon entrance with a cheap TV stand and cheap TV to match it, only this one was on. The sounds were the tape the that was playing on the VCR nearby, it was some bizarre scene in a mental institution. It took him a little while to remember why it was so familiar, it was a cult favorite TV show in the 90's that had been cancelled after one season. It looked like someone had taped the entire Return to Center marathon, probably one of the few die hards that just couldn't let the show go.

Not in the mood to be watching mindless entertainment, he reached to turn off the VCR when a sound coming from the bathroom froze his hand in place. It had come from the bathroom, a sloshing water sound and he barely breathed, turning to the closed bathroom door. There was a bar of light coming from underneath it, someone was definitely in there. He strained to hear what was going on, it sounded like someone was washing their face. Was it Troy? He would find out soon enough, but his sense of paranoia had grown strong since coming here, he planted himself where he was and waited for whoever it was to come out on their own accord.


	4. Chapter 4

Note: Sorry for the delay in updating. Some stuff came up, its a long story. Here's a big ass chapter by way of apology.

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"You Shall Not Tread This Path Alone"

(12)

Whoever was behind the door was taking their time, sloshing water around the sink. He could hear it dripping onto the floor, the faucet running full blast. It had to be a person there, no monster would be cleaning itself up. Most of them he had seen didn't even have hands, so that was something of a good sign that there was human activity going on. It occurred to him then that it might be the Dark Man, washing the gore from his hands. That didn't seem likely to Chuck for whatever reason, it just seemed too mundane a task.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the faucet stopping, a towel being pulled off the rack. Things were being put away, he could hear plastic bottles and metal sliding around together and being stuffed into some kind of canvas. Something like a button or clasp snapped shut and a second later the handle of the doorknob rattled. He braced himself, half expecting it to be Troy, but when the door opened it was someone he'd never seen before.

It was a man in his mid to late forties, nearly bald with a crown of tangled gray hair left. He was overweight, folds of skin stretching the tightly buttoned yellow shirt he was wearing. Loose gray slacks and brown sandals rounded out the man's clothing, if a little oddly matched. He was stocky, powerful looking, likely able to lift a hundred pounds right over his head. His hands were thick and sausage like, one of them holding a curious red and green plaid case. His tired, dark ringed eyes were vacant until they settled on Chuck, opening wide with surprise.

His free hand came over his mouth, the older man backing up slightly into the bathroom. "Please don't hurt me!" he shrieked, hand still covering his mouth. Chuck still had the gun out, he was going to put it away immediately but there was something not quite right that he couldn't put his finger on.

"I'm so sorry!" the other blubbered, fear and pain in his voice.

"Whoa, calm down buddy." Chuck said, reluctantly lowering his weapon. "I'm not going to shoot you. What's your name?"

"Ah…my name? Doug…Doug Stone." he said, hand remaining in front of his face.

"What's wrong with your mouth Doug?"

"I ah…have some bad teeth, I uh, need dentures but I lost them."

"Have you seen anyone else in the hotel, or in the city at all?"

"Me? Seen anyone? Nope, not at all, not me. Just me. Er, and you."

"Oh. Well I was just looking for someone that's all. Friend of mine, name's Troy."

"Sorry, I haven't seen anyone. Can you uh, let me by?" Doug asked.

"Sure…" Chuck said, that uneasy feeling creeping up again. Doug was clearly very nervous about something, and lying to boot. It was so obvious that even Chuck could see it, who was never very good at reading people. Everything about this encounter was strange, from the mouth covering to the large bag the other man was holding, big enough to be a suitcase. Hesitantly he moved out of the way, arm tense like a spring in case Doug tried anything funny.

With his path clear, he quickly darted past Chuck, bag clinking with every stride. Doug paused at the threshold of the door, looking back over his shoulder. With his hand still clamped over his mouth, he said "You should leave before things get bad here…I don't…I'm so sorry."

He disappeared around the corner and Chuck heard him heading deeper into the hotel in a dead run, metal jingling until he was out of earshot. Unhurriedly, Chuck closed and locked the room's door, going back to the TV and shutting that off. Curious as to what happened, he went into the bathroom to see what exactly Doug was so anxious about. It was somewhat small, the off white walls and floor unusually clean for Silent Hill. The sink was built on a light brown pine cabinet while dark green rugs, towels and curtains sat waiting to be used.

The most obvious trace Doug left was also the most inexplicable. In the sink there were streaks of coloring that Chuck couldn't identify, white, blue and pink paint of some kind. They were still staining the freshly wet sides of the sink, what was Doug doing in here? Where ever the answer was, it was probably tucked into that strange bag of his. He kept looking around, there was a tall glass bottle set in the trash. Putting his gun down on the counter, he pulled the bottle up and turned it around to read the label.

It was a bottle of Jack Daniel's, some of the amber liquid still rolling around the bottom. It was fairly dusty, a number of smudged and muddy fingerprints along the outside. While he was never a hard alcoholic, he certainly wouldn't have minded a stiff drink right about then. Not about to put his lips on that bottle, he put it back into the trash. It occurred to him there wouldn't be anyone to take the trash out, but it just seemed wrong to leave the bottle out.

The only thing left to check was the tub, he pulled the curtain out of the way but found nothing out of the ordinary. He almost passed it over when he noticed a small discoloration around the drain. Leaning in close, he found that there was indeed something there that wasn't water. Running his finger along the edges of it, he found some kind of red paint. No…he smelled the tips of his fingers, although badly diluted, there was no mistaking the coppery smell of blood.

Thoroughly washing his hands off in the sink, he picked up his gun again. He wasn't going to put it down, not with all the crazies and monsters running around here. At least now he had some idea of why Doug was so apprehensive, strange paint, washing off blood in the tub. Was he making too much of it? Would there be a good reason for what he found? Maybe he was shaving, or got injured or something…Chuck wanted desperately to believe there was a rational explanation, but if they ran into each other again, he would keep his distance. And his gun.

Heading back out into the main part of the hotel room, he looked around for anything else Doug left behind. Finding nothing of interest, he went back out into the hall and started checking doors again. He cleared the floor, but there was no sign of Troy, no clues, nothing but empty rooms. He was beginning to wonder if he was even here. Finding himself back at room 312, Chuck went in again and locked the door. How could he even be sure Troy was here?

Still mulling over the methods that he might speed up the search, he heard the last thing he ever wanted to hear. The drawn out, blaring sound of a horn coming from somewhere nearby, shaking through the old walls the of the hotel. The light coming in from outside began to dim slowly and he couldn't believe his bad fortune.

"Fuck." was all he could say, feeling nothing but helpless as the darkness closed in around him. He breathed in deep, setting one hand on the tiny switch on his pocket light, keeping his gun pointed to the ceiling by his head. The light faded and the inky blackness covered everything until he couldn't see his own hand inches from his face. He clicked on the light.

The room had been transformed, the real Silent Hill showing itself again. Although most of the hotel looked badly burned normally, this version seemed to have suffered extensive flood damage. The floor was moist and strangely, had sand on it. Some of the walls were rotting and looked like they could be kicked through they were so decayed. Most of the furniture was gone except for the bed, which was a stripped down metal version of itself, the mattress wet and covered in browning stains.

There would be horrors, for sure, but in this alternate version of the town there always seemed to be answers that would be otherwise hidden. It thought that perhaps Troy wasn't even in the normal hotel, but trapped somewhere in here. He was about to step out of the room when he heard a sloshing sound from the bathroom nearby. Turning slowly, Chuck tip toed into the dirty bathroom, pushing the door that was barely hanging onto its hinges open.

Most of it was the same, only the rugs, mirror and shower curtain were gone. The tub however, was completely full of what looked like black water, filled to the brim and streaking down the side of the dirty tub. He could tell though that it was in fact red from the lines that had over flowed onto the floor, it simply seemed black in the lack of light. Unsure of what to make of the scene, he inched closer. From underneath the surface, something moved and rippled the water above, Chuck nearly jumped out of his skin and got out an "Oh j-" before he had backed up to the other wall of the bathroom.

Motion churned in the tub, sending more blood water spilling out over the sides. Chuck's hand shook as he kept the gun trained on the tub, waiting for something to attack. He heard rubbing against the bottom of the tub, the sound one's leg might make when changing positions. The pool of water that went over the side was growing, seeping closer to him along the dirty tile lines in the floor. He contemplated taking preemptive action and shooting into the water, but the moving stopped. There was different sound coming now that was barely audible and somewhat familiar. When it became louder he could make it out, the tub was draining. Slowly but surely the level of the water fell, the sucking sound growing louder.

When the water made that unmistakable hollow sound in the pipe as it drained away, Chuck worked up the nerve to move forward. Stepping into the puddle that was recently moving towards him, he carefully tipped his light beam into the tub. Slowly but surely the red level of the tub decreased, as it got closer to the bottom his anxiety grew, but as the water dropped something curious was at the bottom. With the last of the blood water swirling away, he could see what was in there. It was a complete skeleton, its hands crossed over its chest. The skull was on its side, looking at him with hollow eyes, jaw open in silent terror.

How or why there was motion going on or whether it was made by the skeleton he wasn't about to try to figure out. About to leave, it kind of seemed callous to leave the remains there, looking like that. He set his gun on the counter and adjusted the person's skull so that it faced straight along with the rest of the bones. He closed the jaw as well, it looked relatively at peace in the tub. Chuck picked up his weapon and headed out into the changed hotel.

The halls were just as water damaged as the room, sediment lining the corners and carpet. The feeble light coming from his chest could barely keep from being swallowed by the dank, heavy blackness around him. Would Troy be here somewhere, trying to escape the Darkness just he was? That would make sense seeing as he found the first note in the twisted version of Alchemilla, but he couldn't be sure. It was just a hunch, but in places like this that honed your more primal instincts, a hunch was something to work with.

Continuing down the hall, he made his way back to the stairwell. He didn't bother checking doors here, most of them didn't want to be opened and he wasn't interested in anything that might be behind them. Despite all of the changes, most of the basic layouts of the places remained somewhat the same. He did notice however, missing doors, extra hallways, steel wrought gargoyles sitting in the corners that certainly were there before. A week ago, if he could go back and tell himself about the situation he was in right now, he would have called the loony wagon on himself.

His tiny light was the only hope he had in a place like this. There wasn't really a method to the way he moved, merely following the small patch of visible hotel he could see. Drawn to the stairwell, Chuck quietly opened the door, expecting the worst, but the steps were empty. He headed down, simply because he want up last time. There was nothing he could hear on the steps below, and usually the monsters that inhabited Silent Hill were anything but stealthy. Going down a random number of steps, coming to a landing with a rusty door on it, he angled his light up at the number on the wall by the door. It read "B9121985". He wondered idly if there were really that many basement floors, but it didn't matter, he went through the door.

Immediately he knew there was something else on the floor. Sounds were coming from somewhere around the corner, he wasn't able to tell exactly what it was, but with his adrenaline pumping and senses heightened, it was unmistakable. He took a couple of breaths and started out into the new floor, finger shaking on the cold trigger of the police issue handgun. The sounds were getting louder as he drew closer to the hall's right turn, he braced himself and quite literally jumped around the corner.

There were three people squatting close down to the floor. Two of them were wearing buttoned up shirts, presumably men, but all of their heads were down. The one closest to him appeared to be female, but there was something on her back, a stain of some kind. They were making some strange sounds, but none of them seemed to notice Chuck, even though he was standing there shining his light on them.

------------------------------------------

"Shining his light on them." he said aloud, reclining on the dirty mattress in a room on the same floor not so far away. It was thin and worn, with rusty springs poking through the fabric but that didn't matter much. The room was pitch black, with creatures lurching and dragging themselves about in it, but again, that didn't matter very much. "Poor Chuck." he continued to no one in particular, "Having to endure such things with no rhyme or reason to them. Sooner or later...cut down like leaves in the wind, like snow falling across a windswept mountain, cinders rising to a starless sky..."

The sound of cackling, mad laughter filled the room, even in the dark the creatures nearby instinctively moved away from the bed.

---------------------------------------

"Um, hello?" he said, and they simultaneously turned to face him. He knew right away that he had made a horrible mistake when the trio looked his way. Their were people, or something that resembled people. Their eyes were milky white and had no pupils, jaws hanging open. Blood both dried and fresh stained their lips and faces, covering their hands. They were crouched around something dead, Chuck nearly threw up at the sight. The female let out some kind of howl that was anything but human and he bolted, shooting wildly and sprinting back to the stairwell. He was absolutely terrified, he didn't even know where he would run to when he got back there, only that he had to get away.

Worse then any nightmare he ever had, when he came to the spot the stairwell was supposed to be, there was only blank wall. His mind almost took the time to dwell on this for more then half a second, but survival was what mattered and he whirled around, dropping to one knee. The creatures were coming around the corner, he took as steadied aim as he could and fired at their legs. The flashes lit up the hallway like it was daytime as he shot as quickly and accurately as possible. The female creature was in front, he tagged her kneecap and she went down, the male behind her tumbling head long over her as she fell to the floor. The second male was still coming, one of Chuck's rounds ripped into its abdomen but it hardly slowed. His mental sense of how many bullets he had in the clip told him he was nearing the end of the rounds in the gun, he struggled to slow down his rate of fire and aim more carefully. It was difficult with the terror he was trying not to think about and the sound of his own heart beating madly, but he finally clipped the creature in the shin and it was thrown off balance, hitting the floor.

Chuck scrambled back, making for the nearest door. He turned the knob but it was locked, cursing he stood back and shot the mechanism, the casing ejected and the slide locked back, indicating the clip was empty. Kicking in the door, he hastily slammed it behind him and surveyed the room. There wasn't much in here, the standard rusty bed and a decrepit dresser. Chuck swung the bed in front of the door, bracing it under the ruined lock. He went to the dresser and dragged it over as well, it was heavy which was good for him. Hauling it onto the mattress, Chuck got it settled and jumped to the end of the bed. He sat down and braced his back against the dirty metal frame, releasing the magazine with his thumb.

The creatures out in the hall were still moving closer, he tried to keep his cool as he fed the clip bullets from his pocket. It was maddening to know that he didn't have much time to get this done but going too fast was an easy way to put them in wrong and cause the gun to jam. He got four bullets in when they starting hitting the door, causing the fifth to jump out of his hand and roll away. Cursing again, he fumbled for another round while pushing as hard as he could against the bed, the metal digging into his skin. They seemed to be using nothing but their fists to try to beat the door down, it wasn't a smart method but he knew that the wood wouldn't last if they kept it up.

Keeping as much pressure as he could on the bed, Chuck focused on loading the clip and nothing else. The creature's guttural cries and the pain burning in his legs and torso temporarily took a back seat to the most important thing in the world, slowly reloading his only defense. Only when the wood began to splinter under the blunt force of his assailants did he finish with the one he was on and jammed the clip back into the gun. It wasn't full, but he had to hope that it would be enough.

One of them finally managed to break the weakest part of the door, the panels near the center. It kept hitting them until they had cleared a path, but it was still chest high and all the creature did was struggle to get past the rest of the door it hadn't broken. It let out a throaty cry when it saw Chuck, but wasn't able to figure out how to get to him. Grateful at least for his attacker's stupidity, he rearranged the way he was bracing the door, setting his shoulder against the frame and keeping one free hand out to shoot with. He took careful aim, the monster didn't even seem to recognize that a gun was being pointed at it, another sign that it wasn't human anymore. Although, he wasn't sure he wouldn't shoot even if it was.

The vibrations of the struggle outside the room messed with his aim, but he got an almost perfect line on the monster half inside the room and fired. The bullet plowed right into the creature's skull between the eyes, and it stopped flailing. Like a narcoleptic suddenly overcome by weariness, it fell straight backward and hit the floor with a thud. Immediately another took its place, the female, and with less vibration to deal with it was even easier to plug her right in the head. By the time the third one had taken its place, Chuck didn't even need to hold the bed very hard, and his aim was dead on.

Waiting patiently, nothing came up into the hole in the door, no sounds of the creatures stirring on the floor. Chuck sat on the bed and popped out the clip again, completely filling the gun. Still, nothing, not a sound from outside the door. He stood on the bed and shined his light through the hole, but there wasn't anything he could see but a wall with black blood spattered on it. Chuck pulled the bed away from the door, just enough that he could slip through and cautiously opened it just a sliver. He could see the bodies on the floor, he pushed it open as far as it would go. All three of them were sprawled out on each other, jaws still twisted open grotesquely.

"You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?" he said, carefully moving forward. Keeping his gun trained on the pile at all times, he squeezed out and jumped over them, walking backwards. They didn't move, didn't make a peep, they seemed to be dead but there was no such thing as too careful. He realized though that he was oblivious to what was behind him and in a wave of paranoia, twisted around to get a good look. There was nothing there but empty hallway, so he turned back to the corpses on the floor. They hadn't moved, Chuck kept walking backwards until he was almost to where the hall turned right, where he had first seen the monsters in the first place.

Mostly sure they were in fact dead, he resumed walking normally. Curious to see what exactly the monsters were chewing on, he was dismayed to find that the mess that was there was almost completely gone. All that remained what was on the floor was an arrow, drawn in blood, pointing down the hall in front of him. It was...minutes ago, there had been a major mess here but the arrow seemed to be the only evidence that there was ever anything there. It was a disturbing thought to wonder who or what could have done this, but there wasn't much here that didn't make him feel that way. What else could he do, Chuck followed the arrow forward.

At the end of the hall there was something glowing, when he closed in on it he found an elevator where there shouldn't be one. There wasn't one like it in the normal Lakeview he knew, the regular elevator wasn't even close to this spot. He supposed it could be a trap, but if it might lead to Troy then perhaps it was worth taking. Hitting the down arrow, as there was no up arrow on the small button set, he waited patiently for the steel metal doors to open. It made a little dinging noise when they opened, revealing an elevator car that was little more then a rusted cage. He stepped in, and again on the panel inside the elevator there was only one option, a faded 2 by a button. He hit and the doors slid shut, from far above him gear ground together and the dirty cage started moving downward.

After five minutes or so, he peered through the bars to try to get a good look downwards, but he could only see darkness below him. There were no other doors on the dirty wall as the elevator continued moving down, Chuck wondered if he was even getting anywhere. After another five minutes he took a set on the dirty floor, his fear that he had made a mistake growing larger with every passing second. Would he be stuck on this thing forever, eventually starving to death?

His fears were quelled a moment later when the elevator slowly ground to a halt, another set of double doors appearing in front of the open cage. Chuck got to his feet before they opened, aiming at the center of the doors, ready for an attack. They parted, revealing no monsters but a curious sight indeed. The chamber was very large, a high, convex ceiling that he could only see the top of due to a large light coming from the center of the room. He couldn't see it though, it looked like this room was some kind of trash heap. There was a path through the rubble all around him formed haphazardly out of the material piled around. It seemed to be mostly construction waste. bent and mangled pieces of steel jutting out from pieces of wall and broken lumber.

Moving forward into the path, he tried to keep heading towards the source of that light shining like a beacon in the dark. The path he took was twisting and often forked into a different direction, he simply tried to do his best to keep going in that one direction. Eventually he grew closer, until he could see light shining on the twisting path just ahead of him. When he stepped out into the clearing, after his eyes adjusted to the ample light, what he saw topped the list of bizarre things he had seen in this town or in his life in general.

The source of the luminance was coming from a cluster of stage lamps, all huddled close to each other and pointing directly upward, a tangled mess of power cords spreading from the site. There were bodies on the floor, scattered around the lamp, killed in seemingly varied ways. Some appeared to have been shot, stabbed, beaten, there were at least five that he could see. The strange part was that they all appeared to be mimes. Clothed in the same outfit, they had white face paint, red lips, white gloves and black and white striped shirts with black pants and impeccable shiny black shoes. The ones that still had their faces seemed to be screaming, it was probably due to the man in the room, his back facing Chuck.

Wearing the same clothes he was wearing before, he saw Doug beating on yet another hapless mime victim with a golf club, though at least it seemed the person was already dead. "You silent motherfuckers!" Doug grated, his voice wasn't anything like it was before, far more harsh. He giggled manically under his breath and added, "Gotta work on that slice."

"What...the...hell..." was all Chuck could stammer out.

Doug whirled around to face him, and things got even weirder, somehow. He was painted up like a clown, complete with face paint. He was still wearing the gray pants from earlier but the yellow shirt was gone, replaced by a sweat stained tank top. In his right hand he held the bloody club, in the other a half empty bottle of whiskey. His eyes were dull and bleary, face painted white, with oversized red lips that stretched across his cheek in a smile and blue eye sockets. On his nose was a red ball and his scraggly hair had been dyed blue. The beard stubble poked through the white paint on his chin, framing what pushed his outfit from unsettling to downright scary. He had filed down his teeth to sharp points, to add to the ferocity of his appearance. It was like a bear trap made of bony shards, his breath heaving through them with such a bad stench of alcohol that Chuck could smell it even from there.

"You…" Doug rumbled. Dropping the club, he took a long swig of the whiskey , the alcohol dribbled down his chin and making the face paint run. "Uh…" he said, swaying as he stood. "Have you come to punish me then little man?" Watching him talk was unnerving, it was like a shark.

"What have you done here Doug?" Chuck said.

"No…no…Doug is gone. In the real world my name is Marcus."

"Why did you kill these people…?"

"People? People? What people? These are insects, and they didn't run." Doug, or Marcus, took another long drink out of the bottle.

"Insects are better then you…you murderer. Keep your hands where I can see them." Chuck said, his fear slowly turning to anger and disgust.

"Mimes are the natural prey of my kind. And oh was the hunt so fun tonight!"

"You monster, you…demon…" Chuck seethed.

"What of you, little man? Come to make revenge on me?"

"Put down the bottle Doug, Marcus, whatever the hell your name is. You're going to turn yourself in, you're going to get help."

"And, what if I don't?" he said dangerously.

"I'll stop you, right here, right now, if I have to." Chuck promised.

Marcus laughed, tilting his head back to the ceiling. He took one last swig of the bottle and threw it away, smashing onto the floor. "Agony? Suffering? It's just easier to run. Besides, its what we deserve."

"You deserve help. But if you attack me…" Chuck said, nodding to the gun in his hand.

"Little man, your time is up, you will join your insect brethren in hell!" The man growled.

"I warned you, Marcus…expect no mercy, your life is over."

"I see…let us begin then…CHANGE!" he screamed, jumping to the floor and pulling the cords on the light cluster. The room was plunged into darkness, with only Chuck's tiny light to guide him again. His eyes couldn't react fast enough to the sudden change in brightness, by the time he had reoriented himself Marcus was gone. It was easy to hear the crazed man's step in the otherwise silent room, but there was no way to tell exactly where he was coming from or where he would be next. Chuck could only guess at the general direction of Marcus' location, he picked his way by the bodies in the clearing and chose a path, alert to any movement that he could see as it came along in the claustrophobic and numerous tunnels ahead of him.

It wasn't long before he was fairly lost, most of the stuff looked too similar to differentiate one area from another, especially with only his chest light to see with. The sounds of Marcus' erratic movements stopped suddenly, and there was only the echo of Chuck's foot steps on the hard concrete floor. After wandering around for a few more minutes, it dawned on him that maybe this wasn't such a good idea and that he should look for an exit soon. He was about to turn around when Marcus popped out of a intersection just ahead, bringing a large magnum revolver up to bear.

In his time at Silent Hill, Chuck had seen many things that frightened him beyond rational thought, beyond speech, but this was the first time that he actually saw his own death. It was just like in the movies, time seemed to slow down as he twisted to the right, just as Marcus fired. The miniature explosion boomed in the large room, the flash blinding Chuck for a second as he staggered to the side and clumsily tried to get a shot of his own off. It ricocheted harmlessly off the garbage walls as Marcus disappeared the way he had come, his heavy, thudding steps quickly trailing off into the distance and changing direction. Marcus was giggling somewhere close and he said "Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain…"

Shaking, Chuck stopped to take a breath. He'd never been in a gun fight before, this one might very well be his first and his last. He realized now what a significant disadvantage he was facing, Marcus seemed to know the place extremely well as was able to catch him off guard at any moment. He steadied himself and kept moving along, slower, more careful. There wasn't much of anything he could do but wait for Marcus' steps to become closer, then again, they stopped. It was only a matter of time before the psycho picked an ambush spot, Chuck's heart was beating so fast he thought it was going to explode.

"Budro's coming for ya!" Marcus screamed from nearby, making Chuck immediately dive forward. Marcus shot twice from the right, the bullets whispered by as Chuck returned two shots of his own, but they were wild and didn't even come close. The killer fled again, Chuck picked himself up off the ground and stuck his gun around the corner his adversary had gone down and shot a couple more times. It was futile, he could still hear the footsteps moving away and rerouting.

This wasn't going to work, sooner rather then later someone was going to get a good shot in and the odds were stacked in Marcus' favor. Chuck had to do something and do it quick in order to level the field if he was going to make it out of here alive. He had an idea, and started jogging, keeping a hand over his light so that it only glowed enough for him to not run into the walls. He found what he was looking for somewhat quickly, a dead end passage. Moving as quietly as he could to the very end of it, he set his back against the rubble wall and clicked his light off.

There wasn't much he could do now but wait, Marcus was still moving around the room in a run. It went longer then the first two times, it seemed the light was what he was using to track Chuck's movements. The lunatic ran by somewhere very close, one or two passages over from where Chuck was huddled didn't seem to be any wiser to his location. Maybe his plan paid off Chuck thought, and he could simply wait out the Darkness for a fairer fight.

Acutely aware of his own heavy breathing, Chuck tried to slow down his heart rate as Marcus scuttled through the trash heaps. He could hear the psychotic's frustrated ramblings, unable to locate his quarry.

"Where has he hidden himself?" Marcus said, just barely loud enough for Chuck to hear. "What? Where? Ouuuuuu!" He kept babbling and moving farther away, until his steps were out of earshot. It was extremely unsettling to think that he was still being hunted, but at least it seemed he had shaken Marcus off his trail. If he could just wait, he would have a much easier time stopping the maniac or at least eluding him. Chuck waited longer, what seemed to be forever, yet he heard no trace of the other man. Feeling confident enough to turn on his light, Chuck got ready to find his way out and clicked it on.

Marcus was right in front of him, the light lit up his face like a moving horror story, his shark mouth gaping open. All Chuck had time to do was scream and get his arm up, rows of sharpened teeth clamping onto his forearm, tearing through skin, muscle, blood vessels. Crying out in horrible pain, he barely noticed the hand that gripped his wrist like a vice. The flashlight cast long shadows on Marcus' crazed face, heightening his terror. It was only when the long barrel of the magnum came up out of the gloom that Chuck reacted, turning his head out of the way as it went off, splitting his eardrums instead of his skull. The heat of the bullet singed his neck, he couldn't hear for a couple moments but he was still alive at least.

There wasn't very much he could do, his arms were pinned but his legs weren't. He kicked out, kicked at Marcus' groin, kicked as hard as he ever had in his entire life. His adversary made a little sound, the pressure on his arm lightening, the vice grip on Chuck's wrist faltering ever so slightly. It was all the opening he needed, Chuck pivoted his wrist and shot Marcus in the stomach at point blank range. The clown's eyes went wide, Chuck fired again, and again.

The dagger like teeth came out of his arm, the grip on his hand gone. Marcus stumbled back, apparently confused, three red dots spreading from his abdomen. Chuck's arm was burned with pain, but he didn't waste the chance, blasting three more shots into the maniac's upper torso. Still the dying man stood, blood running in rivulets down his chest, breathing ragged and quickly becoming more shallow. Weakly, Marcus tried to lift the magnum, Chuck pointed his gun at the killer's forehead but the muzzle never came up beyond a couple inches.

The revolver fell out of the maniac's hand, clattering to the floor. He turned, put his back to the rubble wall and slumped down. Marcus' head slowly tilted down and he passed on. Chuck couldn't think of anything to say, he had killed a real person, no matter how sick they were. He should have felt better about ridding the world of a murderer, but he just felt worse.

"Sorry Doug, but you shouldn't have hurt anyone…" he said, looking at the body. All around him, something strange started to happen. The very reality of the alternate Silent Hill began to lift into the air and evaporate, as if it were made of nothing but smoke. The blackness, the trash heaps, the rusted floors and dank smell, it bubbled and disintegrated into nothingness, leaving underneath the hotel as it was when he first came through. It appeared the large, cavernous room he was in had been transformed from a ballroom. There were tables and chairs covering most of the floor, with Marcus still leaning against one of them. There was light coming in from windows set high near the ceiling, making it almost easy to see.

Chuck made his way out, and nearly tripped on something on the floor. He shined his light down to see that strange, multicolored bag that Marcus carried, clasped shut. Bringing it up to the nearest table, he opened it and had a look inside. It was empty, save for a single piece of paper, no, an envelope. There was a single word written on it, but not as much as word as a name.

"Charles Taylor" was written on the front with elaborate cursive. Dirty, smudged fingerprints covered the outside of the envelope, some of them not dirt but dried blood. Why it was in Marcus' possession, obviously handled by him but not opened, he had no idea. The elegance of letters suggested someone else had written it and it definitely wasn't something that Troy had done. Opening the letter, written in the same hand as the outside, was a message, of sorts.

"I grasp without hand, I run without feet. I cut without blade, I destroy without anger. When I am full there is joy but when I hunger there is only pain. I often kill and often save yet I was never alive to begin with. What am I?"

Reading it over a couple more times, Chuck couldn't make sense of it. It was obviously important though, meant for him as well, he put it in his pocket with Troy's note and exited the ballroom. The hotel was back to normal, if the place could be called normal at all. It was much easier to see in the halls then in the ballroom, he shut off his light to save battery power and headed for the nearest way out. He had to go back the way he had come in, walking down the main steps of the grand foyer. The bodies left by the Dark Man were still there, he stepped around them and through the kitchen, back out to the rear of the old building. It was strange, he didn't feel threatened at all, even though when he first came he jumped at every shadow.

Troy wasn't here, it was just a dead end. He would have to find somewhere to stay while he thought of some where else to search, maybe the piece of paper tucked away would lead him to where he needed to be. First thing was first, discovering a suitable place to think. Coming around the corner of Lakeview, he headed back onto the road, following it into the mist.


	5. Chapter 5

"To Push You Out Of The Light"

(8)

Continuing past the hotel, he proceeded into South Vale on the empty street he was on, walking in the quiet mist. Unable to tell what time of day it was, Chuck was glad that it was day at all, or at least what passed for it here. He replayed the words written to him in his head, trying to make sense of them. They were a clue, that much was obvious, but to what? Even if he was able to solve the riddle, there was no guarantee that it would lead him any closer to his goal, to getting the hell out of this place.

Going down the large laned street he was on, Chuck passed by a bowling alley and a gas station into a more residential area. Row after row of nearly identical houses appeared out of the mist, he walked along a bit more and picked one randomly to check out. The front door was unlocked on the modest brown house he entered, a cobblestone path leading from the sidewalk to the door. Inside it was a mess, apparently there had been a family here, or at least a couple of very messy people. Clothes and magazines were scattered around the floors, along with a chew toy or three. Chuck picked his way to the large gray sofa in the living room with a coffee table in front of it, the sofa was about the only thing that was miraculously free of the mess. Sprawling out on the couch, he realized as he sunk into the large cushions how exhausted he was. A powerful drowsiness threatened to overcome him, but he couldn't sleep just yet.

Body protesting as he got up, Chuck checked the other rooms in the house for anything nasty, but it seemed the only unpleasantness was more of the sloppiness its former inhabitants left behind. He went into the kitchen and pulled out drawers until he found the tool drawer, taking from it a small hammer and long nails. From there he expertly demolished a dusty chair from the dining room with the hammer, taking from the wreckage one of the legs. Going back to the door, he locked it up and nailed the leg to both the wall and the door. The house also had a glass sliding door, taking another chair he stuck it against the handle and set a number of dirty pots and pans on it. If anything tried to get in, it would have to make enough noise to wake him to do it.

Weary, Chuck went back to the couch and laid down, setting his gun on the table facing away from him. It wasn't particularly warm out but he nestled into the comfortable cushions and before he knew it, was fast asleep. When he woke, many hours later, it was night. The house was dark, he reached out for the cold grip of the pistol and clicked on his light. The house seemed to be undisturbed, just as messy as he had left it. He got up to check on the quick fabrications he had made, they were still in place. Satisfied that nothing was in here trying to kill him, he returned to the couch and slipped back into unconsciousness. The riddle in his pocket kept drifting through his mind, what it meant, what the answer was but he couldn't think of anything before sleep took him again.

When he woke again, faint light was coming in from outside. He wasn't sure how long he was out, but his body ached in odd places and his neck was stiff. Still, it was refreshing and helped him cope with the horrors he had seen at the hotel. Sitting up, Chuck rubbed the sleep from his eyes, surveying the room. Nothing had been disturbed it seemed, but he could never be too careful. After prying the chair leg off the front door, he spent the day ransacking the nearby houses for anything he could use. There wasn't much around, but he did find edible food in one house, blankets that weren't covered in dust in another. Bringing it all back to the original house he stayed in, Chuck built a makeshift camp in the living room. The mess he simply threw into a bedroom in a large pile, clearing out space for things necessary to survive.

By the time he had finished cleaning and organizing everything, it was beginning to get dark. Undaunted, he went through the houses quickly and rounded up all the candles he could find. Remembering that there was already a box of matches in the first house, he brought the candles back and set them on the coffee table in front of the gray couch. The people that lived here before were unbelievably a couple, with no children to trash the place. Fortunately for him though, one of them was an avid reader and had some fiction novels and comic books arranged somewhat orderly on a shelf. He picked one out and set it on the table, then went about making sure the house was set up to warn him of intruders. Everything appeared to be in order, he gladly went back to the couch to read.

It wasn't so bad, for a little while, almost normal. He couldn't recall the last time that he had sat in bed with a book, but this was pleasant. When Chuck became tired, he blew out the candles and snuggled into the new pillow he'd found, the one clue he had been left with flitting through his mind. Cut without blade, run without feet...what could that mean? How could he use it even if he did solve the riddle? For the first time since coming here, he fell asleep worrying about something other then life and death.

Waking the next morning, Chuck did little but lull around the house. He discovered a thick stack of old Captain Baseball Bat Boy comics in the bedroom, he used to read them all the time as a kid. Bringing the stack into the living room, he lounged on the couch and read them one by one, until he noticed how his fingers smudged the pages with grime. All of the time he was there, it had escaped him that he was fairly dirty and hadn't showered or bathed since arriving in the town and a few more added to that from being on the road. Taking a few candles with him into the bathroom, he tried the faucet. It sputtered and made hollow noises for a little while, but to his amazement water came out. Cupping his hands and getting some of it, he looked closely at the water in the dim light. It was freezing cold, but didn't appear to be contaminated with anything, although Chuck was hesitant to bathe in or drink any of it.

Trying the tub, the pipes repeated the faucet's preamble to letting the water go, but it did, in a solid flow. Twisting the knob over, it very gradually turned the temperature from icy cold to lukewarm, then to steaming hot. Chuck couldn't believe his good luck, any anxiety about the quality of the water becoming secondary to the desire for a hot shower. He quickly stripped and hopped in, enjoying the feeling of being clean, washing away the sweat and filth he had been mired in.

It was rejuvenating to be fresh for once, the house just kept getting better. There was a towel still on the rack, he dried off and started to dress, in the best mood he could possibly be in. Easy to defend, stuff to read, a place to sleep, running water...

Chuck stopped pulling on his clothes and looked into the mirror. "Water." he said aloud. Water ran without feet, it cut into solid rock without using anything but erosion. It saved lives by giving people something to drink and in the form of waves and floods destroyed lives and property. "It's water!" he exclaimed, hurriedly getting his clothes back on. There was another line he was forgetting, he bounded into the living room and reread the note.

"When I'm full there is joy..." he said, wondering what exactly that meant. How could water be full or empty? Unless...it wasn't just water, it was a body of water like a lake or-

"A river." he concluded in triumph. "It has to be a river." There could be a drought, stifling its flow and causing the life along its banks to suffer, but when it was full everything went smoothly. Now all he had to do was turn his discovery into something he could use. As far as he knew, there was only that massive lake as the main body of water in the town, if there was a run off somewhere it could take days to find one. He had a better idea, going back to the kitchen he searched for something he had seen earlier, a phone book. It was old, most likely from whenever the town had been abandoned, but that meant the information would be intact still. Chuck found in tucked away in a drawer, covered in dust. He pulled it open, flipping around for the Silent Hill section. The town itself was never large enough to warrant its own book, this one combined the nearby counties such as Brahams.

Chuck leafed through the decaying book's pages for anything that might be a tie to a river, but nothing was coming up. About to give up, he considered that maybe it was best that he look for an actual river but he pried open the phone book once more, this time looking through the listings for people. He was skimming through the R section when he found it, the only name in the white pages section, one Roger River, 110 Saul street. Was it too much of a coincidence? Chuck looked through the book for some kind of map or diagram, he found a full page of the town of Silent Hill as of the book's printing, some time in 1984. It took him a couple of minutes to find Saul, and a few more to pin point exactly where he was, but it turned out that Roger River's home wasn't very far away. Chuck gathered his ammo and gun, and was out in the door in a hurry.

The streets were as misty as ever, he could barely see things until he was right up against them, but he was sure to bring the page with the map on it with him. He never had an excellent sense of direction, the map would ensure he would make it to his destination and be able to make it back. Turning onto Katz street, he followed it down to the next intersection, past a couple of large apartment buildings. Making another turn on to Saul, Chuck began to watch the numbers on the houses as he passed, growing closer and closer to 110. Finally he stopped at the edge of it, a small red house with a garden in the front, next to a light blue house with a green roof. Unlike most of the doors around town, the front door was locked tight. Circling around back, Chuck found an open window some five feet off the ground. It wasn't easy, but he hauled himself up into the window and slid head first into the house.

Landing in the kitchen, he found himself in a time capsule house. It was immaculately clean, unlike the one he had chosen to stay in. The decor was something that reminded Chuck of his grandparents' home, everything from a different period in time. There were some cigars butts in the ash tray on the kitchen table, as well as a fishing rod and tackle box next to the fridge. On the fridge itself were many photos, both of an old man with presumably his children and with his wife.

Looking around a bit more, Chuck was convinced he had made a mistake. He took a breather on the brown leather couch in the living room, facing a long outdated TV, complete with knob for turning the channels instead of a remote. He cracked a half smile at Mr. River's refusal to join modern society, he was about to head out the front door when he noticed an envelope on the small metal stand that River used for his TV dinners. To his dismay, it said "Chuck" on it in the same flowing cursive writing that the other one had.

He trembled as he opened it, unfolding the precisely folded letter inside. This time it was no riddle, no esoteric clue. It read simply, "Brookhaven Hospital, Room 313". He stared at it for a moment, making sure it was real and looking at his name on the front of the envelope again. This was getting out of hand, why was he following these clues and who was leaving them? Troy started it with his letter in the hospital, could the cursive writing person be doing it for Troy now? Too many questions, too few answers, Chuck didn't like it one bit. What choice did he have now, he didn't have a clue where else to look for Troy and it seemed like someone was trying to lead him in the right direction.

The images of what he had seen and gone through at Alchemilla flashed in his mind when he read the note again, what did the town need two hospitals for? Maybe this one wouldn't be as bad as the last. The good mood that he was in earlier had vanished, along with any of his options of going anywhere else other then Brookhaven. He didn't like being manipulated, he didn't like that someone was stringing him along. But he didn't have a better plan, couldn't think of any other way to find his friend faster. He would go to room 313 and see what was waiting for him there.

There wasn't any thinking to do anymore, it was time for him to act. There might be nothing at this other hospital, there might be a trap and there would certainly be danger, but Chuck would go through with it anyway. Using the map to guide him back to the house, he was already planning what he was going to do. Upon entering the house, he went straight for the phone book again and looked up the hospital's address. That certainly wasn't a good sign...in the book it was Brookhaven Mental Hospital, not exactly the same as a regular one. He was uneasy, of all the places to go in Silent Hill, a nut house wasn't exactly at the top of his list. Still, there was something for him there, whatever fears he had were only natural, and he would have to conquer them.

Marking the location of the hospital on his map, he gathered some dried food and put them in his pockets. Checking the clip in his gun for the tenth time that day, it was just as full as it was the last time he had checked. Sincerely wanting to stay a little longer and just relax, Chuck knew there was no time for that. Walking out into the Silent Hill air, he went along briskly. He couldn't tell what time it was, or what time he had woken up even, but if he had to go inside an insane asylum it might be slightly beneficial to do so in the daytime in the hopes that it would keep the darkness at bay. Not that it even mattered if it decided to come, but he had to hope that it counted for something.

His journey was relatively short, as much as going from anywhere in Silent Hill to anywhere else in Silent Hill wasn't very far. On a couple of occasions he heard movement from the nearby buildings, but he wasn't about to stop to investigate them. Staying in the middle of the street, he made sure if something came at him he would have some room and a little distance before having to fight. Nothing came out of the mist to assault him, soon he was walking down Nathan and coming up on a very large, whitish building. A sign on the front of it read "BROOKHAVEN HOSPITAL" it was a daunting sight to look at. Not nearly as large as the Lakeview hotel that dominated the area around it, for a hospital it was still rather enormous. It used to be painted white, but time had faded and stained it into a dirty ivory. There were quite a few windows boarded up or painted over, that didn't make much sense but then again nothing around here did.

Chuck began to doubt his decision as he walked up the large stone steps, there was something wrong about this place, he could tell already. This wasn't a place to be taken lightly, he very much wanted to turn around but there could be no going back. The large double door entrance turned out to be locked, he kicked it once, twice, on the third time the old doors buckled. He made a short running body slam into the door with his shoulder and it burst open, a stream of sickly air rushing out at him. The smell was worse then at Alchemilla, there was the faint odor of that sterile, antiseptic smell but it was overpowered by the musty, decaying smell that reminded Chuck of a cave.

Almost fully shutting the door behind him, he left it open a little to let his eyes adjust to the somewhat dark main lobby of the hospital. It was odd, of all the places he had been inside since coming here, he never felt out of place. In here, it seemed like he was a burglar, expecting to be caught and taken to jail at any minute. It was a silly notion, there wasn't anyone here and certainly if there was they wouldn't be policemen.

There was a small waiting lobby, standard reception counter with a large counter. Chuck peered behind it at the papers and files on the desk, it seemed to be orderly and showing no signs of struggle. Whatever happened to the people that used to live here, it seemed they didn't even have a chance to react or maybe they just left in a hurry. Although that didn't seem very likely, if there was a disaster in an American town it would have been in the papers, the news, somewhere.

It was deathly quiet in here, heightening his anxieties. He didn't want to be here, but he had to at least go up and look at room 313, to see if there was something for him. It might be another little note, if it was then at least he was making some kind of progress and not sitting in a house reading comics. After wandering around the first floor for a little while, he found a stairwell. Heading upwards, he was forced to turn on his light, the well as dark as night. Just after clearing the second floor, he encountered something on the next landing. It was a small object in the corner, he crept closer and saw that it was a plastic doll. Kneeling down to examine it, he saw that its arms had been severed at the elbow, a rusty scalpel stuck into its head.

"Yeah, that's not weird." he said to himself, shaking it off and continuing up the steps. The door to the third floor appeared shortly, he psyched up and turned the handle, but it wouldn't open. Considering kicking it in like he did the entrance, Chuck decided against it, if there were creatures here the sound would draw them closer in his direction. It was a better idea to try to get there more quietly, although he wasn't thrilled about the idea of taking an elevator in here in light of his last ride in one. He kept going up, the last floor wasn't a floor at all but roof access. There wouldn't be much out there but places like this occasionally kept their storage or tools up here, likely things he could put to use.

He could hear the patter of rain before he made it to the top of the building, though he didn't recall hearing it on any of the other floors. The roof access door was open, it groaned as he pushed it open with some effort. Here the mist was extremely thick, the rain coming down in sheets but it was still easy to see, he clicked off his light as the door mechanism behind him slowly swung it closed. There entire roof was lined with a sturdy fence, the very top of it leaning inward, designed to keep people from getting over it. Not fifteen feet away, there was a small structure of some kind. Smiling that he was right, he made for it when he first heard the sounds over the din of the rain.

From out of the mist, a giant creature appeared, following close behind it there was another. They were barely anthropomorphic, their bodies, legs, arms and head little more then thick cylinders of flesh. Instead of having a head, it was simply a skin column that lead to a curious looking mouth. Their skin was pale and splotched with brownish tear scars, he could smell a rotten odor coming from them. At the spot where their hands should have been it was simply thicker, turning them into battering rams of muscle. Ambling towards him awkwardly in the thick pools of water on the rooftop, they didn't seem to move very well but he didn't want to be anywhere near those arms if they chose to attack.

Turning around, he yanked on the handle of the door back to the stairwell, but it wouldn't budge. His fear spiked, his heart began to pound. There was no way to get out, door was firmly shut. To make matters worse it was crafted from metal, the locking mechanism reinforced with steel plates, likely to make sure an inmate couldn't do what he was trying to do.

Backed up against the door, he was cornered. The creatures lumbered ever closer to him, he had to act. Bringing up the pistol, he fired into the first one's torso, going through most of the clip. The bullets shredded the monster's thin skin, leaving a bloody cluster of wounds and the creature swayed where it stood, but didn't fall. Daunted, he shot the rest of the clip into the same area but still it refused to go down. The second creature began to move around the first, trying to get past its twin.

From the roof of the other structure that he wasn't able to investigate, something leapt and crashed into the second behemoth. Chuck popped the clip out of his gun, somehow the second monster had grown two silvery protrusions from its chest. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that the silver things were handles and the thing that put them there was the Dark Man.

Wearing that same strange harness from earlier, its purpose was now clear to him. It diagonal rows, stacked on each other and meshing like teeth were a large number of short handled knives. The harness held them together neatly and also made them easy to grasp, the handles angled up and the sharp ends kept in contact with the leather. It looked like a shiny carapace on his back and probably more then a little heavy, but it didn't seem to slow the Dark Man down one bit.

Chuck turned his attention back to the first creature, which was still reeling from the first wave of bullets he had fired into it. Knowing that he only had to deal with one of them now, he calmly began to reload the clip, hunched over the gun to keep it out of the pouring rain. By the time the creature had recovered and started to take steps again, he had reloaded almost half the clip. Chuck put it back in and emptied it again into the same spot, this time the creature made some kind of muffled groaning sound from its head mouth and toppled over on the rooftop.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Chuck started to reload again but was more or less distracted by the other battle going on. The second behemoth wasn't getting anywhere as it took swipes at the Dark Man, blades sticking out of its joints and chest. Its massive arms swung powerfully, but it was simply too slow to hit. The Dark Man would dodge and duck, metal rapidly disappearing off his back as he stuck the blades into every open patch the creature presented.

Its thrashings seemed to get more violent, all of a sudden a long spike emerged from one of its arm and took a very quick stab at the black garbed attacker. He simply twisted his shoulder back and down out of the way of the killer barb, using the opening to dart in close. The Dark Man slid around the creature, like a snake. The numerous blades stuck into its skin served as footholds as the Dark Man scaled its torso and vaulted onto its shoulders. Locking his legs around the behemoth's neck and sitting on its broad back, the Dark Man's hands turned to a blur of steel. The area around its neck quickly turned into a pin cushion of handles, its heavy arms dropped to its sides.

It slowly tipped forward, a stream of blood running from its grievously injured neck. The Dark Man rode it as it toppled to the ground and jumped off the last second. Chuck realized that he had failed to load a single round, he popped the clip back in and stuffed the pistol in his pocket. Steam was rising off the mystery man's wet head in the cold air, the rain soaking them both. The Dark Man just stood there looking at him, panting in the precipitation, the water running down his arms slowly, washing the blood from his hands.

Chuck couldn't think of anything to say, not even a thanks but it was an extremely awkward silence. "Damn," he said, "its raining cats and dogs out here. Aren't you cold?"

The Dark Man turned his head to the sky and closed his eyes, letting the drops hit his face. "You see it too?" he asked, opening them again. "For me, its always like this."

"Um yeah I see it...uh...so...why are you helping me?"

"We are friends, you and I. Or will be."

"I don't understand." Chuck said.

"This fact is trivial. Now, tell me what the note in your pocket says."

"What? How do you know about that."

"Tell me." The Dark Man repeated.

"No." Chuck said, and slowly the other man pulled another knife from the harness on his back.

"The information on that paper or the splattered remains of yourself." The Dark Man offered, and Chuck said, "It says 'room 313'."

"I see..."

"What's it to you?"

"There is still hope for you. If you turn back now, perhaps your future will not be as tortured as your soul."

"How many times do I have to tell you I'm not going to stop looking for my friend?"

"Do you so care for the life of a solitary man, unwilling to martyr himself to restore balance?" The Dark Man asked.

"Of course. You wouldn't understand something like that, there's nothing I wouldn't do for Troy." Chuck retorted.

"Yes...I see that now...I sense your conviction." he said. "Be careful not to carry your burden too heavily Chuck Taylor, or you will never leave. The redeemer walks in this place, and nothing draws him as the smell of sin does."

"Who?"

"Look the Beast in the eye. Once you find what you have lost there will be no turning back."

"There was no turning back the second I set foot in Silent Hill." Chuck said, for some reason this seemed to surprise the Dark Man, but he began to walk away, towards the other end of the roof.

"Wait!" Chuck said, "Why do you keep helping me? What do you want?"

"What do I want?" he echoed without turning around. "The flesh of fallen angels."

Lightning struck somewhere close by, the intense flash lit up the rooftop for an eerie split second before it became too bright for Chuck to see. Closing his eyes in pain, he let them readjust before opening them. When he did, the Dark Man was gone, the bodies of the behemoths and the knives sticking out of one of them the only evidence that he was there.

Already Brookhaven has tested his resolve and tried to kill him, but luckily he had someone watching out for him. Or something maybe, but he couldn't deny that the psycho in black had gotten him out of a jam. Still, he had to keep going and do what he came here to do. The rain hit him in fat droplets, Chuck sighed and continued on, his mission still far from over.


	6. Chapter 6

"With No One To See You Fall"

(8)

Chuck stepped over to the blade ridden corpse and yanked on one of the handles, quickly jumping back from the carcass once it was free. The creature didn't move, Chuck watched it for a little longer to be sure it was dead and then examined the knife.

It was a simple design, a straight blade that ended slanting to right side at the tip, making it like a square cut diagonally in half. It was made of one solid piece of metal, the blade ramping into the handle without any guard on it. Still covered in blood, he went to the structure that the Dark Man had jumped from and held it under the steady stream of water coming off its small roof. It took a little while, but the blade washed clean and shone brightly under the blood. He tucked the knife into his back pocket and moved on.

Chuck did what he set out to do in the first place, checking on the extra storage shed for something he could use. He stepped in, glad to be out of the rain although it still hammered away at the roof above, but at least he was dry and could reload in peace. Pushing the rounds in, he turned his attention to what was in the shed. As it turned out, the room was mostly for the storing moldy boxes of patient records. There was some space left for maintenance type items, he did find a couple of interesting things. A small gas can that he could probably find a good use for and a power drill. He wasn't going to lug either around with him, but if there was a wooden door he needed to get into or something he could power by gas, he could come back.

Tucking his gun back in his pocket, he exited the storage room and shut the door firmly behind him. Going went back to the stairwell, he gingerly turned the handle. Sure enough, it opened without a problem, Chuck curled his lip in disgust. "Damn building." he muttered, heading back down the steps. The door to floor two opened without a problem, upon entering he could hear something going on down the hall. In front of him was a very solid looking metal door with a keypad by the side, the hall going left from his position. He turned that way, the noises were coming from ahead. Although there were more doors to his left again, Chuck wanted to know what was going on and found himself moving quietly forward.

Remembering his earlier error of not being too careful when hearing strange noises, Chuck immediately put his hand over his chest light, making it just bright enough to see where he was going. He could hear the rain from outside now, but it was just as dark in the rest of the floor as it was in the stairwell. It didn't take him long to get closer to the sound, when he did he could see there was a light shining in the rooms beyond, he clicked his off with his free hand and continued on.

There were a couple of large windows in the room ahead, the light was coming out of them and the open doorway into the room. Chuck edged to the closest window to him and stood up, just enough to peek through the corner to see what was inside. The light was coming down from a few flickering fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling, showing a number of creatures inside the room. There were four of what looked to be hospital staff gathered under the brightest of the lights, their faces missing just like the ones he had seen at Alchemilla. Three nurses and one doctor with bloody clothes shook and gyrated under the light, holding scalpels and one with a long steel needle.

If that wasn't enough, behind them there was a massive creature that apparently had a nurse monster pinned up against the wall. It was wearing some kind of thick, stained apron from the waist down, exposing a body of muscles that bulged under extremely pale skin. On its head was a giant, metal thing that was somewhat shaped like a triangle, red and sharp angled as if every corner was a stabbing point. The nurse monster was apparently struggling to free itself from the red pyramid thing's grasp, its arms and legs flailing wildly to no use. Suddenly the red thing backed up from the wall, reached over to some kind of rusty piece of metal that Chuck hadn't even noticed was there and brought it down on the nurse. Chuck saw the explosion of blood splatter all over the wall the and the red monster, it brought the giant knife it wielded with one hand down to rest by its waist.

None of the other creatures in the room seemed to realize what had happened, continuing to make gestures under the light bulbs, but Chuck had certainly seen enough. Dropping back down, he put his hand over his light and turned it on, getting away from there as quickly and quietly as possible. His goal to coming to this floor was to get to the third one, he abandoned it and went back to the stairwell, the one way he knew for sure that would get him as far away as possible from that scene.

Chuck made it to the steps and jumped as much as he ran down them, getting back to the first floor. He wanted to leave, badly, but he couldn't. Compelled to stay by his own logic, Chuck slid down against the wall, trying to steady himself. At least it was somewhat bright down here, he simply sat for a few minutes before stirring again.

The elevator was at the end of the hall, it was easy to see now but one floor above he didn't even realize it was there when he walked past it. He hit the up button, the old machinery whirring to life. From the start he didn't want to rely on the old contraption to get him where he needed to go, but it there was no helping it if he couldn't get in by some other means. When the doors dinged open, he stepped in and hit the third floor button, hoping very much that they wouldn't stop on the second. The elevator took him up and past the second with no trouble, opening to the third floor at last.

It was much like the rest of floors, without light and a lingering smell of decay. The main hallway on the floor showed him why he couldn't get in before, the stairwell had been pad locked from this side. Backtracking, he entered the day room and looked around, finding a set of keys on the wall. Only a couple of them looked like pad lock keys, it didn't take long to fit the right one into the mechanism. Tossing it on the ground, he went back to replace the key ring when he thought he heard a noise coming from a wall or two away. Freezing like a statue, Chuck strained to pick up any other sound, barely breathing. It didn't repeat itself, he went on with his search.

The floor also had a large steel door and number pad next to like the second, he would probably need to find the code for it in order to access the rest of the floor. There wasn't much else he could get into in the area, except for a store room and some other door marked "Special Treatment". He didn't want to think about what exactly they were doing in there, but he tried the door anyway, it was open. Chuck moved the knife in his back pocket to his front one, hands wrapped around his gun. He turned the knob and pushed into the room, it was a dingy antechamber to four more rooms, each of them dark except for room one on the right, solid metal door with no window slightly ajar. He didn't know what to make of it, slowly moving closer he peeked in the small slit into the room.

It was very similar to the one he had woken up in at Alchemilla, he pushed it open wide enough to get in. The walls were padded and dusty, clinging to a sagging wall. He could see something written on the ceiling, close to the back wall, cautiously he stepped in. There was no furniture, nowhere for anything to hide and attack him. Chuck went to the back of the room and looked up at what was written there, it was hand drawn in blood, reading "In the garden sleeps a messenger". He was still looking at it when there was a faint sound behind him, he failed to notice anything until it was too late. Hearing it at last, he spun around just in time to see the door slam shut.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, rushing to the door, pushing on it to no avail. There would be no escape this time, no window, the door merging seamlessly with the wall. It was built to keep the loonies in and it would do the same to him this time. He'd walked right into a trap, one that he'd been able to escape the first time but this was too perfect a prison. Daunted, Chuck went to the back wall and slid down, his own consolation the tiny light coming out of the ceiling.

Hours passed, Chuck couldn't tell how many but when the door slowly creaked open he was half dozing off. He jerked roughly out of his sleep, eyes swiftly losing their weariness. Into the cell stepping a sight that he wouldn't have suspected to see here in a million years, his parents. His mom was shorter, kind faced, wearing an old flowered dress that she wore in the summer sometimes. His father wore a pair of sweat paints, his old racing hat and a blue shirt.

"Wh-what are you guys doing here?" Chuck stammered.

"We came to take you home son." his dad said, both of them coming towards the back of the cell.

"You had us worried sick!" his mom added, with that tone she used when she was being mock angry.

Chuck's mind was having trouble processing the information before him, he said "I'm so glad to see you guys. How did...how did you find me? What are you doing here in the first place?"

They didn't say anything, only kept walking forward. His parents both broke into smiles simultaneously, something was horribly wrong here but how could he deny the people that had raised him? On its own, his hand brought the pistol up at them, still their expression didn't change, nor did they stop moving. Something in the back of his mind screamed at him to shoot, but he couldn't do it, how could he shoot at his parents?

They were upon him when a strange shimmering happened, blurring the edges around them. His parents shrunk and morphed into something foul, mounds of sickly flesh in a pile, oozing along the floor like slugs. There was a large yellow eye in the center of the creatures, two arms coming out of the top of the things with up side down hands, clenched into bony fists.

He managed to get a shot off at the first one before it struck him squarely in the jaw with its reversed fist. Chuck saw stars, spinning around and hitting the padded floor. Blinking dazedly, he saw the first creature writhing in pain, its large eye pierced by his lucky bullet. The second creature had oozed its way to him already, he brought the gun up but the monster knocked it right out of Chuck's grip with its hands, clasped together for a painful double punch. A large, toothy mouth split open under the eye, dripping with a greenish slime.

Chuck screamed in terror, his hands yanked the blade out of his pocket and he jammed it into the creature's saucer sized pupil. It screamed it a rising crescendo that hurt his ears, Chuck squirmed to where his gun lay and from his side drilled the creature six times. Its howl cut out, but the first one was still moving, its hands feeling the area around it, coming slowly in his direction. Chuck got to his feet, aimed careful and emptied the rest of the clip into the first one.

The slide locked on him again, the rounds exhausted. He reloaded, his pool of ammo running thin but he could always go back and get more. Pulling the knife out of the second creature's eye, he wiped its brackish blood on the soft floor, moving to the back of the room where he had been laying. Chuck slid down it again, reloading, his hands shaking. When he was done, he set the knife and gun down and cried. It had been a long time since he did, but there had just been too much stress and it was wearing him down.

"I can't take this...I can't...god its not fair." he sobbed aloud. It had all been a mistake, everything was a mistake, he was sorry for ever coming here and not turning back when he had the chance. He cried until the tears wouldn't come anymore, wiping his face with his sleeve. He had to be stronger then this if he was going to ever get out of here alive. First thing was first, getting past that door and finding room 313. If there was nothing there, if it was a dead end, he vowed to leave right then and there, get out of Silent Hill that very hour.

The door was open now, he could leave if he wanted to. Chuck closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, it felt good. When he opened them again, the Dark Man was standing in front of him. Chuck yelped in sudden shock, his hand jerked towards the gun, by the time he realized who it was his hand was already around the handle grip. Slowly lifting it and setting it down on his lap, finger resting near the trigger, he looked up at the Dark Man. The knife harness was gone but he had put those thick black leather gloves back on, only his arms and face not covered. "Didn't see you come in." Chuck said.

"Invisibility is a matter of patience and agility." the Dark Man said, holding out his hand. Chuck lifted the gun by the barrel and handed it over, the other man eyeing it critically. Expertly popping the round in the chamber out and catching it before it hit the floor, the Dark Man took out the clip as well and pulled the trigger a few times, examining every inch of the gun before locking back the slide, feeding the bullet and clip back in before cocking it, handing it back to Chuck.

"That is a quality firearm. It has taken lives, just like you."

"I do what I have to do." Chuck said. "In a place like this its the only way to survive."

"Only a fool trusts his life to a weapon." The Dark Man said. A tiny black spider crawled over his shoulder, climbing around his neck before disappearing around his arm.

"I think...maybe you were right. Maybe I should just leave." Chuck admitted.

"Yet you remain like a wayward leaf on a dying tree?"

"I can't...go just yet. I have to try my best one last time to find Troy, if I fail again I'll leave for good."

The Dark Man shook his head. "The shortest distance between two points will always be a straight line. In this place of horror you find yourself acting noble, and you can be so noble. Love, like winter, can be beautiful or deadly depending on how one views it."

"I already said that you might have been right, and I didn't go asking for opinions." Chuck snapped.

There was a blur of motion, he felt motionless for a moment until he realized the Dark Man was holding him up against the wall, crushing the air out his lungs. "Then here's one." Chuck's assailant growled. "If you open that door, there will be no place left for your black heart to run, and the truth will burn you like white hot fire."

He let Chuck go, who crashed to the floor and gasped for breath. Chuck tried to swing the gun barrel towards the Dark Man's chest, but he back handed the pistol right out of Chuck's hand. Instead of continuing to attack, the Dark Man looked over his shoulder for some reason, turning back to Chuck with an ice cold stare.

"Another pilgrim approaches. Make your choice."

"I'm not stopping." Chuck promised, and the Dark Man's gloved hand came down slowly over Chuck's face. It blocked out all the light, after a little while Chuck realized that the glove hadn't been there for some time and he was keeping his own eyes closed. The Dark Man was gone, he retrieved his gun and sat against the wall, getting his breath back. Some help he turned out to be, Chuck snorted. He considered leaving the knife behind, but it was another weapon at his disposal, even if it did once belong to that lunatic.

Someone was coming from the hall, his grip on the pistol tightened, it was coming right for the room. Slowly someone stepped in, it was Julia, the woman he had seen days ago in the police station. It could be another one of those creatures, he wasn't taking any chances.

"Chuck?" she called, stepping into the Special Treatment room. He had to hand it to the mimics, they copied their subjects down to the last detail.

"Yeah, Julia, sure." he said. "What'll they think of next?"

"Excuse me?" she asked innocently, stepping forward slightly.

He brought the gun up, pointing it right at her chest. "Don't come a step closer." He warned, it wasn't going to get in close like last time.

"Whoa!" she said and pointed that gun of hers right at his chest, it even had the flashlight on the end of it. "Chuck, calm down, I'm not-"

"If you're the real Julia, put your gun down." He warned again. If her image wasn't real, then gun probably wouldn't be either. "I'll kill you where you stand, I've had the practice."

"Okay, I'm doing it Chuck. There's no need to fire." She lowered the gun, perhaps it was the real person and he was making a horrible mistake. Still, it was better to be safe then sorry, he didn't know what she was doing here and it was just too much of a coincidence that they ran into each other again.

"I don't know if I can trust you, but it would be better for you to leave. Even if you are real." he said, offering a out in case she was an actual human.

"Alright, I'm going. Goodbye Chuck." Julia slowly backed out of the room and started to close the door. He reached out to stop her but it was too late, he was shut in again. He couldn't believe his luck, things were going quickly from bad to worse. He closely examined the keen edge of the knife at his side, thought of it ripping through skin, sinew, vein. Trapped, alone, he was helpless. Chuck waited.


	7. Chapter 7

"Darkness In The Hole Of Her Mouth"

(8)

More hours passed, he wondered if he was really getting out of here. The weight of the bullets in his pocket had gotten considerably lighter lately, that would be a problem. It wasn't long before he had something else to worry about, that blaring siren came shuddering through the walls and the tiny light on the ceiling began to dim. Standing up, he took a few deep breaths as the luminescence in the room faded. Taking out the knife and holding it in one hand with his gun in the other, Chuck was ready. When the Darkness had finished descending and two nurse monsters had materialized in the padded cell with him he wasn't afraid. Fortunately they were in front of him, he shot the first one in the back of the head and stabbed downward at the second, the razor sharp blade sinking deep into the monster's neck.

The one that was shot fell forward, dead, the other dropped to its knees and tried unsuccessfully to pull the knife out of its neck, Chuck blasted it through the skull and the tattered form slid onto the floor. The cell door was open now, he moved out of the Special Treatment room back into the hall. Brookhaven had undergone the change, the walls were stained and rusted, the floor filthy and cracked. He could hear voices coming from the main hall, he walked out to find the building around him lit up from some inner fire, embers slowly falling out of the burning walls. They illuminated the floor with an eerie red glow as well as lighting up the two men in front of him.

The first was the Dark Man again, the other was a curious sight indeed. It seemed to be a man dressed in armor, amateur made it seemed. He was covered head to toe in it, a flashlight of some kind stuck into the helmet with its beam pointed at the Dark Man's face. It looked pretty silly to Chuck, but the shield and heavy looking sword the knight carried was no joke.

"Whose that?" the knight asked, quickly turning his head for a second to put the beam on Chuck and then put it back on the Dark Man.

"No one of consequence." The Dark Man said, without looking away from the knight.

"What's your name friend?" The knight asked, but the Dark Man held out his gloved hand to stop Chuck from speaking. "He is not your business here, pay him no mind and answer my question."

"I'm not your pawn, remember who you are talking to."

"I would advise you to do the same." The Dark Man said, stepping forward.

"It wouldn't be a good idea for us to fight." The knight warned.

"You would lose..."

"Yes, but I would take pieces of you with me. Trust me, they would be pieces you would miss."

"There is no need for violence, Victor Rosencrantz. We are not enemies."

The knight laughed. "You expect me to believe that?"

"It matters not what you believe. Harken to me. Relinquish the ceremony."

"Why should I?"

"Because the one you have been watching is in grave danger."

"Julia...?" the knight gasped.

"She is close now. The dark one sense her trespassing where she does not belong, he will not tolerate this."

"You bastard..."

"Time is precious. What say you?"

The knight reached into the pocket tucked in between leg plates and pulled out a letter of some kind, handing it to the Dark Man. He took the paper and spoke quickly, "She is in the basement, take the laundry shaft in the room behind me down to the first floor, exit and go right, past the open hallway into another room on the right, take the garbage chute down but beware, there is only one exit out of the basement and he will most assuredly be guarding it."

The knight bolted and Chuck listened to him clank away, the sound disappearing into the gloom. "What was that all about?" he asked.

"A dangerous ally and a helpful enemy. Do they come any other way?" the Dark Man sighed.

"Uh, in English?" Chuck asked and the other smiled, causing a shudder to run down Chuck's spine.

"Do you have it yet?"

"Have what?"

"Not so, then." the Dark Man said, shaking his head sadly. "Revenge is never a straight line."

Holding out his hand the other man waited patiently. Chuck found himself handing the knife back, still wet from the creature he had killed just moments ago. Giving back the knife, Chuck felt light, almost like he was dreaming. "One last place to check, if it doesn't work out, I'm going home."

The Dark Man sighed heavily. "Tell me, why do you forsake that which you must hold most precious?"

"I forsaken nothing." Chuck said.

"You have forsaken everything. We are almost out of time...when you have lost your sense of direction, go back to where your story began, and will end." The Dark Man turned away and walked into the shadowy corridors, Chuck didn't try to follow. He made for the door with the keypad on it that had kept him from the wing of the hospital. In this world the door simply didn't exist, he walked into changed part of the hospital that housed the patients.

The walls were not on fire in here, though he could still somewhat see their glow and feel the heat. The doors were marked S1, S2, 3 and so on, he started to long walk to 313. His hopes even for that sank when he saw the end of the hallway, a dozen or so rooms down. There couldn't be that many cells, Chuck went as far as he could go and inspected the wall. It was solid, there was nothing in this wing but S1 through 14, another elevator and a stairwell. He was about to give up when he noticed something on the door of room 14, it was a red slash of some kind. Aiming his light at some of the other rooms, he saw that room 11 had three such markings, the same diagonal red slash repeated thrice. Going all of the way back to the first cell, he saw that room 3 had two markings on it.

Three doors, three marks, room 313 being his goal. They had to be linked, maybe the note he picked up back in River's house was in some kind of code after all. There didn't seem to be any numerical system to it, the marks didn't have an order that he could make out. Maybe they had to be added? The numbers of the rooms plus the number of slashes on the door made 5, 14 and 15. That didn't seem to help out any, he tried adding all of them up but that only came out to 34. It still didn't make any amount of sense compared to the room 313...or...34 broken into 3 and 4 added up made 7. 3, 1 and 3 also made seven. Could it really be that? S7 had no special features, nothing on it that separated it from the other doors, but he opened it anyway.

The metal bed frames in the room had been twisted into bizarre sculptures that were vaguely humanoid, the malformed arms made to show fear or warning. They were arranged along the walls, leaving a path in the middle to the only other thing in the room, a small table with a box covered in barbed wire. There was a strange way his light made the shadows of the sculptures appear to move with his every step. It was unnerving but as long as only their shadows moved Chuck wasn't afraid. The object on the small table was metal lockbox with no lock on it, a bramble like mess of barbed wire coiled and looped around it. Chuck took off his jacket and carefully peeled off layer after layer, moving the wire down, pushing it back, pulling it loose. It took nearly twenty minutes to get it to where he could open the box, and there was writing on the top of it.

Putting his now torn up jacket back on, Chuck angled his light down to read the words. It stated "Here Lies Ingrid Cold" engraved into the metal lid of the box. Opening it gently, there seemed to be nothing but slate gray ashes in the box. The light on his chest moved ever so slightly along with his breaths, catching something in the ash that gleamed. Unsure if this was really someone's ashes, his curiosity overcame the hesitation. Trying as hard as possible to keep the powder like contents of the box off of his fingers, Chuck gripped the tiny piece of metal with his index finger and thumb. He pulled up as a silver chain of some kind rose out of the ashes, that smooth motion making small clouds of ash dust rise up.

After it had been completely freed from the box, the chain turned out to be a necklace with a square locket, not even and inch by an inch in size. There was something about the way it looked in the light, shining like a diamond even with a layer of ash on it. Polishing the thin necklace on his jacket, Chuck absently wiped his hands off while studying the item in front of him. He could at once tell that it was a holy artifact, it gave him a feeling of peace and at the same time, invulnerability.

Turning around, he saw that the metallic sculptures had moved from their original positions. Now they were pointing at him, reaching into his path with tangled arms. Chuck wasn't concerned, putting the pistol away he clasped the necklace on his neck, letting the locket rest over his shirt. It was time to leave and he couldn't be more ready. When he came out of the cell, there was a doctor monster standing in front of the elevator. Its face was missing, there was some kind of bulbous growth on its back and in its right hand it held a gun.

A few minutes ago terror would have gripped his entire body at such a sight, but that happy feeling didn't allow him to be scared. The creature dragged itself in his direction, drawn to the light on his chest. Still unalarmed Chuck put out his hand and the creature stopped dead in its tracks, frozen like a mannequin. Chuck walked around it and hit the button the elevator, waiting patiently for the doors to reveal the rusty, cage like car. Hitting the button to floor one, he toyed with the idea of heading down to the basement to see if Julia was okay. The knight was taking care of it though, what was his name, Victor? It must have really been her in the Special Treatment room, if they ever met again Chuck would apologize.

Machinery churned above him when the doors closed, sending the car down into the darkness below. It took longer then it should have to get to the bottom again, but the doors opened and he was back on the ground level. Despite the way the hospital had changed, he found the way he had come in easily. There didn't seem to be an exit there anymore, only the corpse of a dead nurse monster. In no particular rush, Chuck casually searched through the rest of the floor. There was a garden area that he didn't see coming in that seemed to be missing a large chunk of wall. The opening lead out onto the street, if it could be called that, Chuck gladly left of Brookhaven.

The entire town had been transformed into the much harsher version of itself. The street wasn't even solid anymore, it had been replaced by rusted grated that held itself up over an abyss below. There were no stars in the sky or lights on anywhere besides his, the buildings that he wandered past were likewise dark and decayed. The Dark Man told him to go back to the beginning, that was somewhere across the water when he hit the dog creature. Even in the changed town it wasn't hard to find his way around, the giant and even more sinister looking Lakeview Hotel told him he was going the right way.

Picking his way through the northern end of South Vale and going through the residential area Chuck found the bridge that stretched across Lake Toluca. In the lake's alternate form it was black and choppy, unlike the calm serenity of the normal version. His steps clanked hollowly on the metallic bridge as the water churned below, in the murky water he could have sworn there was another light beneath the waves. Whatever it was or might have been, it didn't concern him now so he pressed on.

There wasn't much different on this side of water that he could see, Chuck made for the closest home he could find. What he found didn't offer much by way of friendly greeting, the house like everything around it was consumed by the rusted metal and blood that dominated the landscape. The front door was made of bars but unlocked and Chuck let himself in. The steps of the house had changed into a long ramp that ran into the living room from the second floor. Picking his way past something dead on the floor he headed upward. The first threshold on his right lead to a room with a broken wooden bed and a pile of creepy looking dolls nearby. Their lifeless eyes reflected the light coming from his chest in a nearly human way, it was unsettling but not beyond his control. Setting his gun down on the floor by the bed, Chuck wearily climbed onto it. The day had been long and stressful, he clicked off his light and eagerly slipped into a dead sleep.

It was much later when he woke up again and the Darkness had scampered away. The faint light of day was coming in past fluffy beige curtains. It used to be a little girl's room, toys and stuffed animals scattered around the room and on the other pieces of furniture. Chuck dozed for a while longer before rising, it was a pleasant rest indeed. His fingers closed instinctively on the locket on his chest. It was warm to the touch after being pressed against his body for so long. Retrieving his weapon, he left the now normal house and continued going east, deeper into the central Silent Hill area. Unsure what to be looking for, he simply wandered in the direction that he most likely had entered the town from.

When he saw the house he was drawn to it immediately. It was tall, sitting on a small hill with a wooden fence and gate with stone steps leading to a weathered graying porch. There were trees on both sides of the house which was painted a dark green. Although the paint had faded over time and the lawn obviously left alone, it was still a very nice house. The sight of it tugged at his mind in a curious way, Chuck could have sworn that he had seen it before. There was a very good chance that he had walked by it before during his time on this side of the lake and simply didn't remember, though that seemed unlikely.

The front door was open and he crept into the musty home. Going into the houses in the town always made him feel like an intruder even though the people that lived there had abandoned it long ago. This one however was somewhat inviting, with the charm around his neck there was nothing to fear either. A thorough search of the first two floors yielded nothing special, all that there was left to check was a door in the kitchen. Chuck opened the thin brown door to find stairs that lead down to the basement, aged steps descending to another door at the bottom. There wasn't a light in here so he clicked his on as he walked down the dusty stair case.

There was a plaque embedded into the ancient door made of tarnished bronze. There was too much dust covering the inscription to read it, Chuck had to wipe it off with his sleeve in order to make out the words. It read simply, "Burning Inside With Violent Anger"

Chuck stumbled back, tripping on the steps and landing hard on them. He scrambled away, back up to the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. Sliding down the door Chuck sat panting, not truly comprehending why he was so afraid. He just knew, like he knew about the locket hanging around his neck, that there was something different about that door. It wouldn't be a good idea to open it now, but perhaps if the Darkness was there the plaque would be gone or the basement would be gone altogether. Chuck had to stay now if for no other reason then to find out why that strange writing held such a power over him.

The next three days passed by swiftly while he dug through the house. It belonged to a couple in their 50s that had moved here a few years before the town had simply stopped functioning. Pictures of their children decorated the kitchen, living room and bedroom along with a fashion sense from the sixties. It reminded him a lot of his grandparent's house, the way that everything seemed to be orderly and undisturbed as if no one lived there. Even the bed was made upstairs when he spent the first night there, Chuck never bothered to make it after that.

Sitting in the living room working on some of the abundant crossword puzzle books, Chuck wasn't paying attention to anything else when the long blaring horn sounded from across the water. His heart leapt into his throat as he quickly rose, retrieved his gun from the table nearby and bounded into the kitchen. Part of him was scared but it was overshadowed by his excitement to be doing something again. The light coming from outside dimmed, Chuck kept his hand on the light until it was completely pitch black. Turning it on, he opened the door to the basement and shined it down the steps. The door was there but transformed into a thick steel one that was thankfully missing the plaque.

Going down the steps, he could see that there was light coming from underneath the door. When he stood in front of it at last, Chuck noticed there was no handle but the door swung inward on its own accord. Behind it was a tunnel of some kind that was lined with torches burning on the walls, steel grating on the floor. In front of him stood the Dark Man, face ashen, hands bloody. The locket on Chuck's neck grew cold against his skin but he wasn't afraid.

"Chuck." the other said.

"Dark Man."

"I have protected you the best I could. I watched over you when you were vulnerable and felled your enemies with my own hand. But now the time has come for you to go where no one else can follow."

"I'm ready."

Gesturing with his red hand the Dark Man led him down the tight corridor. It was quite a long tunnel, the evenly spaced torches running into the distance. It was impossible for something this large to exist under the house in the real world Chuck realized. Neither of them said anything, but he did notice that under the grating they walked on there was a shimmering underneath as if somewhere deep below them there was water.

At the end of the tunnel was another metal door, this one with a large hatch in the center. The Dark Man exerted himself against the wheel mechanism with a short grunt. The metal screeched in protest, rust falling from it as it turned and grudgingly spun open. There was an audible _thunk_ when the lock finally opened, giving way to some kind of boiler room beyond. The door they passed through led to a catwalk high above the floor of the room which was packed with monsters. Massed like sardines they lined the walls and crowded the small area, but none of them stood near the only other exit. Directly in front and below of the entrance Chuck came through, past rows of sickly monsters was a massive circular door with another hatch in the center. Guarding it however was the Red Pyramid thing he had seen days ago, its giant blade slick with gore and bits of flesh.

It was uncomfortably hot and Chuck had the distinct feeling that he was descending into hell when his guide began moving down the walkway. He brought the pistol into his hand which felt slick in his sweating grip. "Fear not the lesser horrors." The Dark Man instructed. "But He is here to stop the beating of your murderous heart. I will pray for your safe passage."

"What is he?" Chuck asked, nervously following the other man down. Though the room was warm, the locket on his chest was getting colder by the minute.

"The guardian, the avenger, the redeemer, the executioner. My power is great but that which is divine cannot wholly be suppressed."

The Dark Man wasn't making any sense as usual but he had bigger things to worry about when they reached the floor of the boiler room. It was easy to see Pyramid Head even with all the other creatures in the room as he towered over them all. Chuck's hand instinctively grasped the locket at the sight of that terrible helmet, but the Dark Man bade him to stay put. The creatures didn't seem to notice the black garbed person pushing his way through them to stand in front of the pyramid creature. Suddenly the Dark Man started to assault the monsters around him. They were so overcrowded most of them died on their feet and remained upright slumped against others nearby.

Once a small space had been cleared out the Dark Man started laying out bodies at the feet of or more accurately at the end of the butcher's smock Pyramid Head was wearing. After hauling six or seven dead and dying creatures to the front and stacking them into disorderly piles, the Dark Man knelt to his knees in front of Pyramid Head. Holding his arms out at his sides as if presenting his victims, the Dark Man bowed his head low and stopped moving. Several minutes passed but nothing moved or even reacted when Chuck began to step forward.

Using the path the Dark Man had made to get to the clearing, Chuck still had to brush uncomfortably close to the monsters around him. When he came to the clearing Chuck moved around to the left and actually had to push some of creatures out of the way to break free of the mob. He was less then two feet from Pyramid Head now, the locket on his neck an ice cube. He couldn't make out how the thing was able to see with that thing on but at least it seemed to be frozen where it stood. Chuck kept as much distance between himself and Pyramid Head as possible while he edged around it to the hatch.

The wheel was sufficiently difficult to budge that he had to put his gun away in order to get both hands on it. When it gave way and turned Chuck pulled out the pistol again and cranked the wheel quickly around. The door cracked open and a beam of white light burst in, Chuck slipped inside and shut the door behind him.

As if the tunnel he had come down wasn't improbable enough the view before him was flat out illogical. It seemed to be the inside of a giant cathedral, the dome ceiling rising well over a hundred feet in the air. Rows of benches and columns of white that supported the structure stretched out, delicate painting on the dome above him and intricately crafted stonework on the floor. Although the walls and unpainted surfaces were bright white the entire cathedral lacked any religious icons whatsoever. The very center of the room, if it was even a room, a cylinder of pure light poured in from an opening in the ceiling, shining down upon the shoulders of a single person.

So used to the dim light of Silent Hill, Chuck had to raise his arm to shield himself from the sensory assault. When his vision adjusted to the radiant glow he could see the person in the center more clearly. It was still hard to look at but he was fairly certain that the person standing there was Troy, the one had had risked life and limb to find. Eagerly rushing forward Chuck waved and smiled, running past row after row of benches towards his friend.

Stopping short of the center Chuck waited for Troy to walk casually out of the beam. The other man was all smiles and charm, at his charismatic best. "Troy…is that really you?" Chuck breathed.

"Hey buddy." his friend said with a smile.

"Man, you have no idea what I went through to find you." Chuck said, unable to keep a grin off of his face. "There was just…oh forget it, I'll tell you later, let's just get away from this godforsaken town already."

"Can't do that." Troy said sadly, the smile fading from his face.

"What?"

Troy sighed heavily and walked over to lean on the nearest bench. "Chuck…how long have we known each other?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Just think about the answer." Troy soothed. This wasn't the time for reminiscing and his memory never was very good but despite himself Chuck thought back to grade school. It had been a while since he had tried thinking about this but like an accident or a good birthday some things stayed with you forever.

"Fifth grade." Chuck responded. "You sat two rows ahead of me next to Chris Matheson. We used to eat lunch by the table closest to the playground."

"Good. You remember. Now think back to when I moved away."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I-"

"Chuck." Troy said sternly. "Focus. Remember." The commands settled into his mind like hooks caught on his head with someone pulling on them. The images were so fuzzy and his head hurt and the room started to spin but the feelings passed and the images cleared.

"Seventh grade…you…you moved away. I was really sad…"

"Of course you were. I was too. Who wouldn't be?"

"But…you're…you've…this doesn't make any sense. If you moved away when we were kids then…why can't I remember when you came back and when we were friends again?"

"Think."

"Wait...this doesn't make any sense..."

"You have to think now Chuck. Its time for you to remember everything, so that you will understand while you're here. When did you first see me again?"

"When...when she broke up with me..."

It came back to him now why he was here and what had happened before. This whole trip, Troy, the Dark Man, Silent Hill, it all made sense. As if he was reliving something that happened to him in a dream, the last few months of his life broke free from the self imposed blocks that kept it hidden.

Sandy Williams was the love of his life. They met in high school and had been dating through her first year of college. Chuck didn't have to money to go so he stayed at home and worked to save up enough to get them a place to live. In secret however he had planned to buy a ring and take her out camping, proposing to Sandy somewhere high in the mountains. It was supposed to be the happiest day of his life but one weekend she came back home to tell him things weren't working out. It was almost like a movie the way he saw himself talking to her. She complained that he was holding her down and that she had met someone else in college.

He was devastated, something like this never factored into the perfect vision of the future that he saw for him and his would be fiancée. Chuck thought of himself as strong but he cried like a baby when she was gone. Resolving to try to find a way to change her mind, Chuck plotted his options to get her back. It was around this time he started to see Troy again, the last best friend he had, only updated to match Chuck's age. Jokingly Chuck invented a past and some ways they would have spent their time together only in retrospect it was constructing this imaginary friend.

When the time was right Chuck invited Sandy to his house to get the last of her belongings. His parents were out, this was his last chance to win her back. He saw the conversation in such startling clear detail he couldn't imagine why he had chosen to block it out in the first place. The look on her face, the breeze coming in through the window, his sweaty hands and as always her radiance.

"Look Chuck, its over. We had some good times yeah, but that was just a high school thing. People change and move on." she said.

"But...just a while ago you said you loved me." Chuck protested.

Her face softened and she said gently, "I didn't want to hurt you. We can talk about this later, I just came for my stuff."

"How...can you be so cruel?" Chuck said, more to himself then to her.

"Oh grow up Chuck. If you weren't small time then I wouldn't have gone looking in the first place."

His hand hit her so fast it surprised the both of them. Sandy's eyes shot open and her hand came up to her face. "You loser!" she screamed. "Todd's gonna kick your ass!"

Unable to control himself, Chuck attacked her again in the grip of a terrible fury. Looking back on what he had done without flinching, he had to watch every movement as he beat Sandy to the floor. It was sickening to see himself do that to the one person he loved more then anyone else on earth but he watched anyway as penance for the deed. When he realized she wasn't breathing his past self broke down and hugged her, crying.

The scenario played out worse then he could have ever imagined but still he watched. It dawned on his past self what he had done and he knew that he couldn't be found with her like that. It was dark out so he dragged her to the garage and put Sandy in the trunk of his Gremlin. Taking his passport and keys Chuck headed south, careful to stay under the speed limit. Troy hopped in at the first stop light he came to and they headed for the border.

His heart beat like a piston passing through the border checkpoint into the US but Troy was there to soothe him. It was pure chance they decided not to check his car and he didn't complain, heading down into the northeast part of the country. Watching himself talk to an empty seat, cracking his window for non-existent cigarette fumes, Chuck could clearly remember both Troy being there and not being there.

It wasn't until they rode into Silent Hill that he began to view things that we not like the others. After hitting the dog he realized that he did pass out, but when waking up on the street it was Troy who was in control. Driving the car around the city for a bit he spotted the ruined bridge and made his way over to it. Putting the transmission in neutral, Troy pushed the entire thing into the lake.

Detached from the whole thing Chuck watched himself enter the green house that was above his head and undo the locket, holding it out into the air.

"Spirits of mist, I beseech you to hold this for me until I am ready to accept what I have done. When the time is right, return it to me and I will grant you the worship that you are due."

Chuck realized that Troy had known something about the town that he didn't, possibly because it had spoken to that side of him. Whatever the case, it didn't take long at all for there to be a response. A hand closed on his shoulder and a voice whispered behind him, one that Chuck could now identify as the Dark Man.

"I am Nothing...the Fater." the voice said. "Your wish is granted."

From behind Nothing took the locket out of his hand and slid a pocket light into his shirt. When Troy turned around there was no one there, he accepted that the voice would take care of things and sought out a safe place to rest. Finding Alchemilla, Troy laid down in a patient room that Chuck would later wake up and find himself locked in.

"So..." Chuck said slowly. "You're...not even real. And I'm a nutcase."

"Me? I exist Chuck. I exist because you made me. Thought me up, gave me my name. Troy Sheder. What's that an anagram of?"

"Destroy her." Chuck said without having to think about it. Why would he, the name was something he imagined in the first place.

"It wasn't a coincidence we started to hang out again after that bitch dumped you. I have to admit though, sometimes it wasn't easy to keep you in the dark." Troy said with a laugh.

"You mean us in the dark? How wasn't it easy?"

"No I mean you. Like when you were talking to that Julia woman and mentioned the broken bridge even though you hadn't been to it yet. Or how you used the light in your pocket without wondering where it came from."

"...I don't get how you can know things that I don't."

"You needed me just as much as I needed you Chuck. If it wasn't for me you would still be huddled in a corner somewhere whining about Sandy. You did what you had to do and I helped you get here."

"Why here? Why Silent Hill? Was this part of your plan?" Chuck asked, forgoing the sheer oddity of asking himself questions.

"That...was an accident. I never meant to end up here but...can't you feel it? The old gods still live here. The power of this town gave us a second chance to be happy again."

"You're not even real." Chuck accused bitterly.

"Oh, is that what you think? Maybe out there I was but here? I'm real, solid." Troy walked over and put his hand on Chuck's shoulder. The weight of the arm, the warmth of someone else's hand, it could have been a hallucination but if it was that strong then who was to say it wasn't real all intents and purposes?

"Its okay." Troy promised. "You don't have to fight anymore. There's just one last thing to take care of."

"Chucky?" said a voice behind them, one long since missed. Chuck whirled around to find Sandy standing there by the benches. She had her hair up the way he liked and was wearing the sweater he had bought her last year. Radiant as always, Sandy was the picture of beauty. He didn't believe what he was looking at and although he wanted to he couldn't look away.

"Hey..." she said, waving a little with her hand. She smiled and the light coming in front the ceiling glinted off the locket around her neck. He looked down at his own locket and wondered why he had never thought to open it. Likely it was Troy's doing but he reached down and pried it apart. It contained Sandy's picture, a tiny photograph that was taken years ago.

"Sandy..." was all he could think to say.

"Its okay Chucky." she said. He never let anyone else call him that, he didn't want people to associate him with the doll.

"So much I want to say." he breathed.

She drew closer, smiling in such a way it made his heart ache. "Forget it. Let's pretend it never happened."

"I've been doing far too much of that lately." Chuck said despondently, feeling the warm tears start to roll down his face.

Standing right in front of him Sandy stared with those blue eyes that he had loved since he first saw her. "I forgive you Chuck." she said. "Come with me. Let's go back to the way things used to be, just you and I together forever."

"Forever…" Chuck echoed. He looked her in those eyes he knew so well. Sandy stepped forward to hug him but he stepped back, shaking his head.

"What's wrong? I said I forgive you. Stay with me."

He felt that ugly feeling rising up in him again, surging up into a white hot rage that he could not put into words. He knew what to call it now, it was Troy.

"No." he growled. "I don't forgive you. You led me on, you were the most important thing in my life and you broke me in half. That's not love, that's some kind of sick torture."

"Chucky-"

"No more! I hate you for doing this to us!"

Before she could speak again, he brought up the gun and shot her between the eyes. Sandy didn't have time to scream or react, there was only a startled look on her face as she fell backwards.

Someone began clapping behind Chuck as he turned to see Troy smiling winningly. The tears made it hard to see though that hardly mattered anymore.

"Good job buddy." Troy beamed, walking over to him. "I knew you could do it. Now, you know what needs to be done don't you?"

"Yeah…" Chuck muttered numbly. "I have to give thanks to Silent Hill for my time here."

"That's right." Troy agreed, putting his hands on Chuck's shoulders. "And what does Silent Hill want for offerings?"

"More bodies."

"Very good." Troy nodded approvingly. "I thing we're going to fit in just fine here."

"Troy?"

"Yeah buddy?"

"I'll start with you."

He shot his best friend through the jaw at point blank range. Blood splattered across his face and Troy stepped back once. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and Troy dropped to the marble floor, dead. Chuck stared at the body for a while, the weight of the gun in his hand seemed to be a million pounds. This was the part where he turned it on himself but there would be no suicide today. He had come full circle to that terrible moment when everything he ever valued was destroyed by his own hand.

The people that had meant the most to him were gone and everything seemed so utterly pointless. There was nothing left, no one left, no reason to stay here, no reason to stay alive. A couple rounds still waited anxiously in his gun but they would never come out. His chest began to heave as he threw the weapon to the floor.

Looking down on Troy's body he stepped over it into the column of light. Where it was coming from and why it was shining through this roof in particular he didn't know or care. It took his vision away but there was something else in the room now. Trained senses and that special sixth sense of being in danger alerted him to creatures moving in from all corners of the room. They dragged and shambled and oozed towards him but Chuck didn't move. He continued to look up into the blinding light while the monsters converged on him. The first attack was something metal that pierced his stomach and he cried out in pain. They continued stabbing and beating until the world swam away from him and the bright light bled away into a sea of pain.


	8. Chapter 8

"Inevitable And Over"

(1)

Birds chirped overhead and sunlight waved down through leaves and clouds. Someone was shaking him incessantly and he drifted out of unconsciousness to see two men in Nascar hats looking down at him. There was a twig sticking into his back but the ground was otherwise soft and cool. One of the men was talking and he struggled to comprehend what was being said.

"You okay pal?" the first man asked.

"My...my head hurts." Chuck said.

"Where's your car?" the second man said.

"I don't have one anymore…"

"Well you shouldn't be sleeping on the side of the road here. Someone might run you over."

"Run me over…that would be too easy. Can you...call the police?"

The two men exchanged a glance and the first got up. Chuck sat up and looked himself over. There were no scars, no blood on his shirt. It would be hard to tell if he had imagined all of it but first thing was first. He was going to turn himself in for killing Sandy.

"What were you doing out here?" the second man asked anxiously.

"I was lost...where am I?"

"Brahams."

"How far are we from Silent Hill?"

The man's face changed suddenly. "We don't say that name out loud." he whispered, as if he was trying to hide what he was saying from someone nearby. "It's about ten miles from here though."

"I see..."

The other man returned from the red pick up truck that had been pulled over to the shoulder. "Sheriff's on the way." he said. "We saw you just lyin' there, what were you up to?"

"He was hangin' around that ghost town Billy." the second man said.

Billy inhaled sharply. "Shit, what the hell were you doing out there?"

"I was running away. Now I know that you can't ever run away from yourself." Chuck said absently. "Thank you for helping me. You can go now, I'll wait for the police."

"You sure?"

"Yes, thanks for stopping by. It's nice to know that there's still good samaritans around."

They looked at him strangely but departed without any more words. Waiting patiently for the trooper to arrive Chuck admired the beauty of the world around him. It was likely that he would never see it again after going back home to face his crimes.

The car arrived some twenty minutes later. Chuck waved it over and explained to the officer that he had murdered his girlfriend and dumped her body in the lake in Silent Hill. He asked to be taken back to Canada to turn himself in.

The trial was relatively short and he didn't remember much of it. There was a woman crying throughout most of the hearing, probably his mother. When the sentence was handed down Chuck asked for more time or possibly the death penalty. For some reason this surprised the elderly judge and when they took Chuck away it wasn't to prison but some kind of hospital. Its similarities to Brookhaven and Alchemilla aside it wasn't such a bad place. The nurses were kindly and they gave him extra jello because it had always been his favorite.

On the third Thursday of every month he had a single visitor. The staff led him to a small room with no windows and one table where he sat facing an empty seat. Eventually they would allow the Dark Man into the room to sit in front of him. He used the name John Ross while he was there but that certainly wasn't his real name.

Many times Chuck wondered if he was real. It seemed to be the case since occasionally Nothing would bring cookies or letters from Chuck's parents. The letters never disappeared and the other people at the facility enjoyed the cookies so that was good evidence. The letters were also his mom's handwriting and unedited, if they had gone through the mail system the staff would have blanked out anything they deemed unsuitable. Sometimes Chuck would have letters to send back. The Dark Man would put them into his jacket stealthily. He would get them delivered without fail.

They were allotted with two hours of time that always seemed to blur by. Nothing told him about events in the world, talked about good movies that Chuck should request, offered his thoughts on insanity. It was strange but comforting in a way. He couldn't quite understand why the Dark Man was being so nice but Chuck was glad to have a friend.

The nights were the worst for him. With no one to keep him company in the cell his mind invariably turned towards the past. It would take an agonizing half an hour or more for the night time meds to kick in. During those minutes when he was alone he thought about Sandy and Silent Hill often. It would have been so much easier to take his life then and not have to constantly feel the pain of what he had done. That would have been the coward's way out though. This existence of regret and shame was what he deserved for his crimes he reasoned. At least the drugs usually kept the worst of the nightmares and depression at bay.

Usually.


End file.
